Epic Games Delays Disney Shooter, Orders AI-First Production: 'No More Hand-Written Code'
Epic orders an AI-first rebuild of its Disney shooter
Epic Games has delayed its unannounced Disney shooter featuring Marvel and Star Wars characters and ordered the team to switch to an AI-first production model, according to a Bloomberg report by Jason Schreier published Monday, October 12.
The game had been targeting a March 2027 release. Bloomberg reported that no new date has been set, and that development had fallen behind because Epic underestimated how many developers and how much time the project would need.
In an internal message seen by Bloomberg, one of the game's directors told staff there would be "no more hand-written code." All art for the game will be generated with full AI workflows, with developers using tools including Anthropic's Claude and humans guiding and managing the output rather than producing it directly.
Epic confirms the pivot is company-wide
Epic did not dispute the report. Communications director Jake Jones told Bloomberg the company is "embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do."
Hours after the report, CEO Tim Sweeney confirmed the shift on X, writing that Epic has "a huge pivot underway," moving developers around to "retool for maximum AI acceleration." Sweeney said the aim is not to do the same work with fewer people, but to let staff build more and better products, with the benefits flowing to all teams using Unreal Engine.
Bloomberg reported that many developers on the project were stunned by the mandate. No major games company has previously attempted to build a full production mostly with AI, and the project is a flagship of Disney's partnership with Epic: DIS invested $1.5 billion in Epic in 2024 and took an equity stake, with the shooter framed as the first of multiple joint games.
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How this could hit the options market
The delay is a headline risk for DIS, whose gaming ambitions run through Epic. Options traders will watch whether Disney comments on the new timeline, and flow in gaming peers like TTWO, EA and RBLX could pick up if investors treat the AI mandate as an industry cost story rather than an Epic-only one.
There is also an AI infrastructure angle. The mandate centers on Anthropic's Claude, and Anthropic's biggest public backers are AMZN and GOOGL. A high-profile, company-wide adoption by a studio of Epic's size is the kind of enterprise AI signal that has repeatedly moved flow in those names.
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