Epic's $1.5 Billion Disney Project Delayed With No New Date After AI Directive
Epic Games has delayed its Marvel and Star Wars shooter indefinitely and ordered developers to finish it using an "AI first" model with Anthropic Claude as the core tool. Bloomberg reported the decision on October 12, 2026, and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney publicly confirmed the pivot the same day — but Disney is silent, and no new release date has been given.
What Has Happened
According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, Epic Games has delayed the launch of the shooter being developed in collaboration with Walt Disney, featuring characters from the Marvel and Star Wars universes, indefinitely. The game is now to be completed using an "AI first" production model, according to people familiar with the project — sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly (Bloomberg).
This is the flagship of the Disney partnership: Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic in early 2024, and the collaboration was originally aimed at a Marvel- and Star Wars-themed shooter with a March 2027 launch (Ars Technica, Kotaku). One nuance in the sources: Bloomberg's own wire gives the original target date only as "March," while Ars Technica and Kotaku state March 2027 — and Engadget notes that rumors earlier this year pointed to a November launch window, which had already slipped to March before the AI directive arrived (Engadget). Either way: the game has been delayed with no new date.
The Directive: How the AI-First Model Is Meant to Work
Developers on the game have, according to Bloomberg, been instructed to implement an "AI first" production model in which tools such as Anthropic Claude serve as the core, while humans manage and guide the work. In an internal message from one of the game's directors, which Bloomberg has reviewed, it states verbatim that there will be "no more hand-written code," and that all art in the game is to be "generated with full AI workflows" (Bloomberg).
The model thus breaks with both the coding and the art practices of traditional game development: instead of programmers writing code and artists creating assets, the work is generated by AI tools that employees are then expected to quality-check and steer. It is worth emphasizing what the sources actually document: the directive and the internal message are known through Bloomberg's reporting, not through Epic's own description of how the model works in practice.
Why Was the Game Delayed?
Progress on the Disney game has been slower than expected, partly because Epic underestimated how many staff and how much time production would require, according to Bloomberg's sources (Bloomberg).
The context is harsh. Epic laid off more than 1,000 employees in March, citing a "downturn in Fortnite engagement" (Ars Technica). Kotaku additionally points to the costs of ongoing antitrust litigation as part of the picture surrounding the layoffs (Kotaku). That a project backed by $1.5 billion from Disney has struggled with staffing is thus no unexplained mystery — but the underlying causes rely heavily on unnamed sources.
Epic's Public Version
The story received immediate official confirmation. Epic's communications director Jake Jones said in a statement to Bloomberg: "We're embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do" (Bloomberg).
Tim Sweeney himself went public on X on October 12: "We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration," the Epic CEO wrote (Dexerto). In another post, he framed the pivot as more production, not fewer staff: "The aim isn't to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal" (Dexerto).
This is not the first time Sweeney has painted this picture. In a June interview with IGN, he raised the possibility of games with "the possibility of infinite dialogue with a really simple setup for creators," and a future in which "small teams will be able to create games with immense amounts of characters and immense and interactive worlds" (Ars Technica).
The Reaction Internally — and Across the Industry
Bloomberg describes a stunned reaction. The announcement left some Epic developers shocked during a video call last week, according to the paper's sources. Some joked about how they were supposed to handle errors from the AI-generated work — including whether they should ask Claude to fix its own mistakes. Others said they hoped the message was not meant seriously, or that the company would reverse course, because they believed the initiative would not succeed the way Epic hoped (Bloomberg). All of these details come from unnamed sources and cannot be independently verified.
The employees' skepticism coincides with a broader climate in the industry. In GDC's annual developer survey, 52 percent said generative AI is negative for the industry this year, up from 30 percent in 2025 (Engadget). Epic's flagship project in the Disney partnership is thus to be carried out using a working method that a growing majority of the industry's own developers view negatively.
What We Don't Know
Several key pieces are missing. Disney has not commented — a spokesperson did not respond to Bloomberg's request by the time of reporting (Bloomberg) — meaning Disney's stance on its own branded content being produced with a full AI workflow is unknown. No new release date has been given. The identity of the director behind the internal message has not been made public, and Bloomberg's account of the developer reactions rests on anonymous sources.
It is also important to hold on to what is not on the table: evidence that the AI-first approach works or fails does not yet exist. What is documented is the directive, the delay, the developers' immediate reaction, and Epic's framing around them — that the game is meant to deliver more and better production, not fewer staff. Whether the pivot can deliver on Sweeney's promise of maximum acceleration on a project that has already proven slower than expected and understaffed remains an open question.