Epic Games Pivots to Maximum AI Acceleration for Unreal Engine

Epic Games has announced a company-wide pivot toward maximum AI acceleration, reversing a previous stance from last year regarding the use of AI tools for development. CEO Tim Sweeney confirmed the company now uses AI to develop code and features for Unreal Engine.

VP of Development Marcus Wassmer detailed the use of Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex to streamline feature development and improve shader compression to reduce patch sizes. The company has adopted a process called vibe-coding, where engineers guide AI tools to produce architectural results rather than writing the bulk of the code manually. This approach allowed the company to rewrite portions of the D3D12 rendering layer in one week, a task previously estimated to take six weeks, and eliminate long-standing non-deterministic cooking bugs.

Beyond engine development, Epic is deploying AI for automatic monitoring, root cause analysis, and fix generation for PC stability issues in Fortnite. The company also released a preview version of the Epic Games Launcher that it described as vibe coded, claiming the new version boots 46 percent faster than Steam from a cold start. Wassmer stated that the company is more concerned about the risks of moving too slowly than it is about AI skepticism.