Fortnite’s Epic Games Goes All In On AI, Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, developer of Fortnite, has said that his company is all in on AI workflow from code writing to art.

It's no secret that Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has been an advocate for AI use for a while now, but he has just announced a sea change at his company that will have ramifications across the entire industry, not just the studio's flagship game, Fortnite. Epic is now all in on AI.

A new report from Bloomberg revealed that Epic had delayed a video game collaboration with Disney, in part because it will now be made with an "AI first" model using AI systems like Claude. This was first circulated in an internal email, but Sweeney almost immediately spoke about the new plan publicly on Twitter:

"We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration. 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."

Then, replying to a comment that ratioed him about his inability to "read the room," he had this to say:

"Much of the room wants it to be 2016 again, but it's not. Our job, as the provider of tools and technology to much of the industry, is to design for the present that is and the future that will soon be. Personally I'm optimistic about it and see it as empowering for creators."

The Bloomberg report details that there will be no more handwritten code, and also the upcoming game will be "generated with full AI workflows." There is no word on how Epic's main game, Fortnite, will be affected by this plan for the Disney game, but it's easy to read the tea leaves. Once Epic's main cash cow, the company has been public about the fact that Fortnite has been in the red, which has led to moves like increasing V-Buck prices and laying off 1,000 employees in March of this year.

There are two worlds right now when it comes to the use of AI in game development, and of course, most industries. In gaming, there is the position that AI can help make games faster and for less money, which are indeed two problems plaguing the industry with practically every new title. On the other side, there is the longstanding position among many players that AI has no place in games, particularly generative AI, which is often pointed out and lambasted until it's removed by the shamed developers in question.

The reality, however, is that there are countless companies in tech already doing things like using AI-written code, if not having the majority of their code written by AI, as is the case with a giant like Google. The fact that this would make its way to the games industry was inevitable, and just because Sweeney is the vocal, blunt messenger doesn't really change the reality of the situation.

There is also this idea that, with AI, "anyone can make games," with so many technical barriers removed, but AI generating actual, quality games is a high bar that gamers believe cannot be met. A fear is that the market will be utterly flooded with "slop." Some in tech do not agree. Here's Twitter's former head of product, Nikita Bier, responding to this news:

"There's something beautiful about the most expensive game of all time ($2B) being dropped the same month that AI models became capable of creating comparable experiences. The swan song for the Big Studio Era."

He's referring to the upcoming launch of Grand Theft Auto 6, though few gamers believe AI can generate a "comparable experience" just because you can vibe code games now. Can you make a game with a huge city and a guy walking around and shooting guns? Sure. Can you make Grand Theft Auto 7? Almost certainly not.

It's an extremely complicated issue. While they may not be boasting about it publicly, many studios are likely to speedily pursue AI development tools given that timelines and costs have reached what feels like an unsustainable breaking point, if they aren't doing that already behind the scenes. Online backlash will not be enough to stop that, but GenAI is a parallel track, something more easily spotted in games, particularly if we start moving to majority or entirely-AI produced games. That's where consumers can vote with their wallets and discourage the practice.

Most of the time, however, AI use will be kept behind the scenes and integrated into games without anyone really knowing. Opposing this does feel a bit like shoveling sand in the desert. A lot of this is moral opposition, which few studios are likely care about. It's "can this produce something of quality faster and cheaper?" and "can we convince most people to buy it, AI objections aside?" If the answer is yes, then well, that's going to be the industry going forward and many assume that large-scale layoffs could follow. Sweeney may be the bearer of this news, but he is just the loudest, and given his spearheading here, others may now openly follow suit.

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This article was originally published on Forbes.com