Epic Games AI Disney game: Marvel and Star Wars are now the test case for AI made art
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Epic Games is telling the team developing the Disney shooter that they need to stop writing code altogether. No writing a little bit less, but stopping entirely. “No more hand-written code,” one of the directors on the game said in an internal message, as reported by Bloomberg, and everything will be “created using full AI workflows.” It uses characters from Marvel and Star Wars. Read that twice.
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A delay dressed up as a strategy
As per Bloomberg, the shooter was expected to come in March but has been pushed indefinitely without a fixed release date. The mistake made by Epic is that it underestimated the number of people and time required. The solution is an “AI first” approach using technologies such as Anthropic’s Claude, with humans controlling and curating the generated results. This is a huge gamble for Epic. This is a last resort. Just reflect on the fact that a studio which had enough money to create a game like Fortnite and was working with Disney itself couldn’t hire enough people to launch a shooter game and wants to get results from lesser people. This is exactly the issue with a fresh brand.
Who owns the bug
The developers were shocked during a video call a few days ago. They even made jokes saying that Claude should solve the problems that Claude created itself. And that is the entire issue. People are being asked to oversee something that they have not written and to take responsibility for something when it fails. Just imagine checking a million lines of code that people haven’t even written.
Disney’s most guarded characters
Disney invested $1.5 billion in Epic in 2024 for equity and this game was to herald a collaboration involving several games. Disney is one of the companies which protect their intellectual property fiercely. The company did not respond to the Bloomberg’s attempt to get its comment. This is a telling sign. The company either allowed Marvel and Star Wars artwork generated through AI technology or it just failed to check the small prints.
Players are not in the mood
According to a survey by Bloomberg, more than a third of developers have incorporated AI into their profession, while more than half of them feel it does no good for the industry at all. The gamers have been less diplomatic about it; they consider AI content as poor in quality.
There is also the money issue. Data center demands for AI technology have increased prices on GPUs and memory cards, which in turn increases prices for gamers’ machines. Now, the same technology produces games for the gamers. In India, where computer parts are not only costly because of import duty but also expensive in rupees, this is a double whammy for gamers.
The test case
This, according to Bloomberg, is the first time a large-scale gaming studio has attempted to create a game using mostly AI. In other words, this is the experiment from which everyone will learn. Whether it succeeds in terms of shipment or fails in terms of shipment, every other publisher will follow suit. It seems that by laying off 1,000 employees in March because of declining Fortnite revenue, Epic Games put the responsibility for arguing on behalf of the entire industry into the hands of a single game.
The quality standard is not low, though. This is a licensed shooter based on the two most popular franchises in the world, not some indie game jam project. Any off-model characters and poor animations will stand out like sore thumbs, especially considering how much artificial intelligence was involved in the development process. Marvel and Star Wars didn’t ask for this, nor did the players.
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