Epic Games’ Unannounced Marvel And Star Wars Shooter Delayed As Company Goes All-In On AI Development

Epic Games has reportedly postponed the launch of its highly anticipated, crossover shooter featuring iconic Marvel and Star Wars characters. Initially slated for a March debut, the title has been pushed to an undetermined release window, according to a report by Bloomberg. Insiders suggest the delay stems from a sweeping internal pivot toward an “AI-first” development pipeline, heavily utilizing advanced tools such as Anthropic’s Claude.

Leaked internal correspondence reviewed by Bloomberg reveals a stark directive from one of the project’s directors, who allegedly told staff to bid farewell to traditional programming, declaring that all future art assets would be produced entirely through automated AI workflows. This revelation arrives on the heels of another peculiar announcement: just two days after the report surfaced, Epic rolled out a preview of its redesigned Epic Games Launcher, brazenly attributing its creation to “vibe coding” because “programming is hard.” Coming from the powerhouse behind Fortnite—one of the planet’s most lucrative live-service games—and the industry-standard Unreal Engine, dismissing software engineering with such casual candor has raised more than a few eyebrows.

“Programming is hard, [so] instead of doing that, we vibe coded a new Epic Games Launcher that’s way faster and more responsive than the current one, and has a new look,”

— Epic Games Official Blog Post

In its marketing materials, Epic claims the revamped launcher boots up 46% faster than its primary rival, Steam, and restores from the system tray to the game library 14% quicker. However, early adopters testing the preview build have reported performance that starkly contradicts these claims. A video demonstration shared on Bluesky by Chris Person of Aftermath depicts the new interface as sluggish, erratic, and frustratingly unresponsive at times.

Addressing concerns surrounding the mysterious Marvel and Star Wars project and its heavy reliance on automated technologies, Epic Games Communications Director Jake Jones told Bloomberg, “We’re embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do.” Even so, this aggressive technological shift follows massive restructuring that saw Epic lay off upwards of 1,000 employees last March.

According to Bloomberg, Epic’s long-term strategy for this AI-driven methodology involves human creators acting as curators, guiding and refining the raw code and artistic assets generated by machine learning models.

This ambitious sci-fi and superhero crossover shooter is widely believed to be the centerpiece of Disney’s massive $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games, which was officially announced in 2024. Aside from a steady stream of themed cosmetic skins in Fortnite, tangible fruits from this high-stakes partnership have been scarce—though contemporary AAA development cycles are notoriously lengthy.

[Source: Bloomberg]

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