An unannounced shooter combining the Star Wars and Marvel universes at Epic Games has been delayed indefinitely — and its developers have been told to rebuild the game around artificial intelligence.
According to a Bloomberg report published October 12, staff working on the Disney crossover project were informed of the change last week. The game, which had never been officially announced, was quietly targeting a March 2027 release and is now on hold with no new date set.
The bigger story is how it will eventually get made. Per the internal instructions reported by Bloomberg, the team is to adopt an “AI first” production model built on tools including Anthropic’s Claude, with art to be created through “full AI workflows”.
Sweeney: “Our humble goal is to survive the AI revolution”
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney responded to the report on X shortly after it went live, framing the shift as a company-wide retooling rather than a headcount play. The aim, he said, is to let developers build “more and better stuff” and to extend the resulting tooling to every team using Unreal Engine.
On the question of whether audiences have grown wary of generative AI, Sweeney was direct: much of the industry wants it to still be 2016, he argued, but Epic’s job is to build for the present and near future. He described himself as optimistic and views AI as empowering for creators.
Asked about an IPO, he downplayed the idea, saying Epic’s “more modest aim” is to survive the AI revolution and help other developers do the same.
On efficiency gains, Sweeney offered numbers: improvements currently range from about 20% in the most technical Unreal Engine work to roughly 5x in areas like web development. He expects almost nothing to remain below 3x the efficiency level of January 2026 by this time next year.
He also pointed to design benefits, arguing that the biggest change will be the speed from idea to playtest — and that many recent AAA failures came from game systems going too long without being played.
The backdrop
Epic laid off more than 1,000 employees in March, a move Sweeney attributed at the time to declining console sales, ongoing legal battles with Apple and Google, and the challenge of delivering “consistent Fortnite magic with every season”. The AI push arrives as the company looks to do more with a leaner organisation and to position Unreal Engine at the center of AI-assisted development.
What to watch
The project is now a live test case for an idea the industry is debating in the abstract: whether a high-profile, licensed AAA game can be built substantially through generative workflows without players seeing the seams. Disney’s involvement makes that test harder to ignore. If the eventual reveal is well received, expect “AI first” to spread quickly through studio pipelines. If it isn’t, Epic has bought itself enough runway — the game is delayed with no date attached.
One thing is already settled: the controversy won’t wait for the game.
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