Epic Games has reportedly postponed the release of an unannounced shooter game that was slated to feature Marvel and Star Wars characters. Originally planned for a March release, the game's launch has been pushed to an unspecified date as the company shifts its development strategy towards an "AI-first" model, according to sources speaking with Bloomberg.
Internal communications reviewed by Bloomberg indicate a significant pivot, with directives stating "No more hand-written code" and that all art for the project will be "generated with full AI workflows." This strategic change comes despite Epic Games laying off over 1,000 employees in March. Epic Games' communications director, Jake Jones, stated to Bloomberg that the company is "embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do." Behind the scenes, the plan is for human oversight to guide the AI-generated code and art.
This Marvel and Star Wars shooter is reportedly tied to Disney's $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games, announced in 2024, which aims to create a broader gaming and entertainment universe beyond cosmetic items in Fortnite.
Coinciding with these development shifts, Epic recently unveiled a preview of its new Epic Games Launcher. The company described the launcher as "vibe coded" with the explanation that "programming is hard." Epic claims the new launcher boasts a 46% faster launch speed than its main competitor, Steam, and can restore from the system tray to the library 14% faster. However, early user experiences with the preview version have painted a different picture. Videos shared on social media have shown the launcher to be laggy, occasionally buggy, unresponsive, and generally slow, contradicting Epic's performance claims.
Epic Games is the developer behind the highly successful live-service game Fortnite and the widely used Unreal Engine game development toolkit.