Epic Spiele reportedly delays Star Wars and Marvel shooter amid shift to AI-accelerated development

By Jake Campbell•12 October 2026

✓ Fact-Checked & Verified

Epic Spiele has reportedly delayed an in-development Star Wars and Marvel crossover shooter, telling developers to adopt more generative-AI tools as it shifts toward “AI-accelerated development.” That is according to a report from Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier, citing anonymous sources familiar with the unannounced game.

The project—a collaboration between Epic and Disney—is said to have hit a speed bump. The maker of Fortnite reportedly expected to release the shooter in March 2027 but has now slipped that target. According to the report, Epic told its staff to adopt an “AI first” production pipeline and finish the game using tools such as Anthropic’s Claude.

In an internal message seen by Bloomberg, one game director told developers there would be “no more hand-written code” and that art work should be “generated with full AI workflows,” which reportedly surprised many workers.

We’re embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do.

Jake Jones, Epic’s communications director (to Bloomberg)

The announcement comes less than a year after Epic laid off over 1,000 employees. At the time, CEO Tim Sweeney told staff “we’re spending significantly more than we’re making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the company funded.

Epic’s push for generative-AI tools across nearly all levels of game development follows a partnership announced a few years ago, when Disney acquired a $1.5bn stake in Epic and the two companies agreed to collaborate on a “games and entertainment universe” connected to Fortnite. No concrete details were given at the time, though both said players would be able to “create their own stories and experiences, express their fandom in a distinctly Disney way, and share content with each other in ways that they love.” Mehr recently, it was reported that senior Disney executives were interested in buying Epic Spiele outright.