Epic Games has indicated an AI-first pivot recently,centering Unreal Engine on facilitating AI development,using GenAI to build game assets, and updating the Unreal Engine EULA in the futureto allow AI to be trained off the output. But so far, the company has not detailed the ways in which it will be using AI to build its own software, including the Unreal Engine.This Week in Video Gamesreports a more specific answer from Epic, confirming that Unreal Engine itself will be shaped by AI.
“As we mentioned back at Unreal Fest in Chicago on stage and in interviews, we are definitely using AI to develop code and features for Unreal Engine,” said Marcus Wassmer, the Executive Vice President of Development at Epic, in response to comment requests from This Week in Video Games. “Almost all development happening right now is being done in the dev streams attached to Fortnite, UEFN [Unreal Editor for Fortnite], and UE6. There’s a possibility of a 5.9. If we make it, it would be a relatively modest update for specific systems and will include changes developed with AI. Generally speaking though we’re working as hard as we can on UEFN and UE6.”
Wassmer went on to explain that tools like Claude and Codex have stamped out “non-deterministic cooking bugs” that Epic has been trying to eliminate for a decade. AI tools, Wassmer claims, also help in automatic monitoring of PC stability in Fortnite to alert Epic to driver/hardware combinations that are causing problems and would have taken more work to root out by hand.
“The tools are helping us not just develop code and features, but to keep the engine more stable as we work, trim, and streamline it, and really modernize it in a way that we haven’t been able to before given the size, complexity, and age of the engine code.”
Epic recently claimed that it rebuilt the Epic Game Launcher through “vibe coding,” stating that it runs notably faster than before. Wassmer confirms this process is being used for more than just the Epic Game Store. Engineers are not writing the bulk of the code, but Wassmer insists that they are controlling the scope of its use.
While surveys in recent years have shown thatgame developers are worried about generative AI, Wassmer seems to show no such compunction, saying that the benefits to the company far outweigh any potential concerns
“We are more concerned about the risks of moving too slowly than we are about AI skepticism,” Wassmer says. “We think that in pretty short order doing AI development for basically all software will be ubiquitous because software done correctly with AI will simply be better and be more capable of responding quickly to customer feedback than software done without. The best way to counter any skepticism is through the quality of the games and tools we’re able to deliver.”
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