Epic continues to be all-in on AI. In a recent statement to This Week In Video Games, Epic’s executive VP of development Marcus Wassmer clarified the specifics around how the company is using AI for Unreal Engine 6, Fortnite, and just about everything else at the company.
“Yes, we are vibe-coding things. That means our engineers are no longer writing the bulk of the code, but they are still guiding the tools to get the architectural result we want,” Wassmer said. “We’re not ‘one-shotting’ the engine; we’re iterating with AI to ship features developers want and keep the engine within the memory, performance, and scalability envelopes.”
“We are more concerned about the risks of moving too slowly than we are about AI skepticism,” Wassmer added. While the move is unsurprising given how outspoken Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has been in favor of generative AI, it marks a shift from where Epic was just a year ago, when Sweeney denied the company was using AI for Unreal Engine updates. The concept that the new version of one of the most-used video game engines was “vibe-coded” by AI, and thus may not be fully understood by Epic, has been met with alarm by many game developers. Others have pointed out that there’s little reason they don’t just vibe-code their own engine instead of paying Epic’s hefty licensing fees.
Earlier this month, Epic revealed that it “vibe-coded” a new version of the Epic Games Store launcher. “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,” the post reads. Shortly after, social media was filled with clips of the launcher hallucinating, while one poster claimed that the new launcher had bricked their PC. Epic claimed the launcher booted faster than Steam, but shortly after, Valve released a store update that negated the difference. Sweeney confirmed on Sunday that the company is using AI tools to develop code for Unreal Engine.
What other pro-AI statements has Sweeney made?
Beyond this, Sweeney has made several pro-AI statements in recent months. He said that he believes a “golden age of gaming” is imminent because of the technology. He has repeatedly criticized Steam’s inclusion of AI disclosures as a “political act” that “confiscates opportunity” from developers. Many players still care about whether a game’s art assets and writing were generated by an LLM instead of created by humans, though some gamers are getting more comfortable with AI in games.
Epic recently delayed an unannounced game that would cross over Marvel and Star Wars characters while the company shifts to its “AI-first” development approach. “No more handwritten code,” one of the directors reportedly told staff. All the game’s art will reportedly be “generated with full AI workflows.”