Epic Games Delays Disney Title, Orders 'AI-First' Push on Code and Art

Epic Games has delayed an unannounced game built on Disney properties and handed its development team an "AI-first" directive, according to a Bloomberg report. Staff on the project have been told to use AI tools — including Anthropic's Claude — more heavily to produce code and art. The game had been targeting a March release; no new date has been given.

The mandate is unusual in how explicitly it ties a shipping deadline to AI-assisted production. Rather than treating generative tools as optional accelerators, Epic is reportedly asking developers to route a meaningful share of code and asset work through them. Bloomberg's account describes the shift as "AI-accelerated development," a phrase that suggests the company sees model-assisted pipelines as the way to close a schedule gap rather than a side experiment.

Anthropic's Claude is named as one of the tools in use, which puts a major entertainment publisher behind a specific commercial model family. Epic already runs its own AI research and ships products with machine-learning components, but directing a licensed Disney project through third-party coding assistants is a different kind of bet. It also raises immediate questions about how generated art interacts with Disney's brand standards and Epic's own asset pipeline.

The delay lands on a partnership that both companies have promoted as strategically important. Epic and Disney announced a $1.5 billion investment in 2024 that made Disney a significant shareholder in Epic, with plans to build a games and entertainment universe connected to Fortnite. That deal gave the collaboration unusual visibility, and any slip on a flagship title will be read as a signal about how quickly that universe can actually be built.

For developers across the industry, the more consequential detail is the labor model. If a studio of Epic's size can compress production timelines by pushing code generation and concept art through large language and image models, the pressure to adopt similar workflows will spread — along with disputes over quality control, credit, and what happens to artists and engineers whose tasks are partly automated. Epic has not publicly detailed how much of the game will be AI-generated or how it plans to review that output.

The open question is whether the AI-first approach actually recovers the lost schedule. Epic has not confirmed a new release window, and neither the company nor Disney has commented on the Bloomberg report. Watch for a revised date, any disclosure about which parts of the pipeline are automated, and whether other publishers with licensed properties follow the same playbook.