Epic Games reveals generative AI use in Fortnite as game developers clash over the technology

Epic Games Is Using Generative AI In Fortnite To Make Mistakes

After criticism from players six months ago for allegedly using generative AI in Fortnite, Epic Games has decided to just...openly admit it via a video demonstrating the various generative AI tools its developers are apparently using in Unreal Engine to make buildings, characters, skins, and who knows what else: The video starts with an artist drawing a character, first as a loose sketch, and then spending time coloring and refining it. Okay, so far so good. Looks cool. Then, for some reason, the artist moves into a tool called "GenMedia" and writes a text prompt: "Clean up the rendering on this Fortnite character. Don't change the design, just the rendering." They press the button and...uh, whoa, okay. The drawing immediately looks significantly...shinier, and gains a bunch of new details that the voiceover admits were not desirable, like a skeleton decoration on a belt pouch, a whole second belt pouch added on the side, a glove that wasn't there before, and some goofy stuff with the collar. The artist then has to spend time fixing all the stuff that the AI screwed up, leading one to ask, why did we use AI for this to begin with? This happens again later in the video when the AI image generator and editor Nano Banana is used on an in-progress building, "prompting for clean PBR render shots and adjusting the perspective." The result seems fine at a glance, but the longer you look at it the more discrepancies you see in things like the shape of the central sign tower and some weird additions and removals around the windows, again leaving the artist to have to manually fix it. Then they do it again later in the process. "All along the way there are continual reviews before anything makes it into our games, and artists are careful to respect originality, track provenance of their work, and make sure the finished product meets Epic's high-quality standards." To me, that sounds tedious and unnecessary. Just adding work. But I am not an artist. If an actual artist says that doing all this still saves time, that cleaning up all these pieces manually would take longer than identifying and fixing what generative AI screwed up, I'm absolutely willing to believe that's true. I think it's naive to refuse to admit that using generative AI cannot "save time," at least in the sense that it can help people arrive at what someone at the top considers a finished product in a shorter span of time. But I also don't think that matters. Because what they're doing here is saving time by introducing a bunch of potential, random "mistakes" into every single piece of art they use this on, sometimes multiple times. What they're doing is taking their own, original work, and passing it through an environment-destroying machine that spits out unoriginality. How long will it take for someone to miss an AI-generated error, and for that error to make it into the game? Perhaps this has already happened: this video is coming out six months after Fortnite was accused of using generative AI to make some in-game signage in which fans found a number of strange mistakes, like a person with just nine toes and a clock with weird numbers. It's coming a year after players forced a generative AI Darth Vader to say a lot of things that were neither Disney-friendly nor acceptable in a T for Teen game. And, propensity for errors aside, that doesn't even get into the loss of process, the loss of the actual work and creativity of making art brought about by the generative AI tools allowing artists to just "skip ahead in the timeline," whatever that means. Or maybe none of that matters. Maybe we're content with touches of generative AI here and there if it "helps" developers. We shouldn't refuse the conveniences of new technology, right? Maybe this is good for the artists. Sure. But this is coming just three months after Epic games laid off 1,000 people because its leadership couldn't keep an eye on their own balance sheet. What that tells me, in aggregate, is that Epic Games needs fewer artists to make new content for the game faster, which inevitably is going to mean tighter deadlines and more mistakes. I am not naive enough to think that Epic Games, having laid off this many folks, is going to use generative AI to give the artists that remain more generous deadlines that will allow them to reach their creative potential or fully realize their original ideas or whatever. Epic Games is concerned, first and foremost, with making money. If its leadership thinks they have a tool in hand that will allow fewer people to spit out art that's good enough faster, they will use it. My apologies to the Silly Sandwich and the Yarn Barn. I would have loved to see the versions of these that emerged without the dubious "help" of generative AI.

"Gamers don't want it": Palworld lead says Pocketpair doesn't touch AI because players hate it and artists "like doing stuff themselves"

As game developers push back on generative AI, publishing and communications head John Buckley of Palworld developer Pocketpair suggests the division around the tech is another reason to avoid it. "Gamers don't want it," he says, "and if the gamers don't want it, I guess that's it, right? Not much of a conversation to be had." At this month's Summer Game Fest alone, several games, including the revived Crazy Taxi and the latest Tomb Raider, rushed to explain their use of AI after some fans reacted with concern or criticism. Speaking with GamesRadar+, Buckley, who's previously shut down claims that Pocketpair used generative AI for some of the creatures or assets in Palworld, affirms that the company doesn't use gen AI at all. "I'm sure some people are doing it," he says. "It's not really for us. I personally can't imagine it ever being too prominent. I'm sure there are some companies out there, some big companies, that are maybe using it to 'save time.' I don't know. I don't really think gen AI has much - I don't want to call it a bubble, but I don't know how much longer it's gonna keep up. Even Steam is pushing back a certain amount on it." Mandatory AI use disclosures at the bottom of Steam store pages have been used to show how games were made at a time where any usage could be a deal-breaker for some people, both developers and players. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney opposed Steam's AI disclosures, which are not shared by the Epic Games Store, on the grounds that "AI will be involved in nearly all future production". Even if you did ignore the backlash AI use regularly ignites, Buckley says Pocketpair has no need for the technology because, "We have a lot of artists in-house. They like doing stuff themselves. There's no reason to get rid of them for the sake of an AI doing it. Just seems pointless." Buckley is less sure of the future of AI-assisted coding, but on gen AI more broadly, he says "it's hard to imagine where that goes in gaming." He points to Steam Next Fest, a seasonal event which sees thousands of game devs post demos on Steam in the hopes of reaching players. Buckley laments seeing more and more AI-generated assets and/or listing images appear in recent Steam Next Fest games, and echoes many of the complaints voiced by players. "Even I, who is in the industry, I just felt like a natural, ugh, why? The rest of your game looks fine. Did you need to...? I think that's going to be the attitude for quite a while. I think people will look at it and say, did you need to do that? Couldn't you just do it yourself?" Buckley previously argued that the spread of generative AI and associated tools would contribute to an "authenticity market" where creators may deliberately lead with assurances like, "This game's 100% human-made," both to head off any concerns and to separate themselves from AI-generated works. Already, I've begun to see devs clarify, unprompted, in emails and store pages that they are pushing back on AI games or that no AI was used in their own production. "I don't know if we need to now start saying this is 100% human-made," Buckley adds. "I think we should just all assume games are human-made unless said otherwise. I think it's a bit dystopian that it might end up like that. We'll have to put a Steam disclaimer, 'This game is made by humans.' That's kind of sad to think about." As a senior at a Japanese company, he also reflects on regional divides in AI opinions, reasoning that some markets are more open to the technology. Analysts and some other developers have also suggested that companies in China or Korea, for example, may be quicker to embrace or at least experiment with the tech. Stellar Blade maker Shift Up is one prominent example; its CEO, Hyung-Tae Kim, said earlier this year that gen AI could help Korean studios compete with the manpower of studios in China and the United States. (So far, there's no indication of AI-generated art in newly revealed sequel Stellar Blade: Blood Rain.) "Not saying I am, but there are some markets that are a lot more willing to adapt than some others, and I think that's where the clashing will come," Buckley explains. "Two to three years from now, we'll see a bigger clash in that regard. Certainly in the West, I think people will remain pretty against [it] for a while."

Why so many game developers don't want to use generative AI

Generative AI, though pitched as a revolution, remains taboo. Game developers like Stardew Valley's Eric Barone and Subnautica 2 studio Unknown Worlds openly avoid or malign it. The makers of trophy-adorned RPGs like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Baldur's Gate 3 faced severe backlash over whiffs of gen AI. Nvidia DLSS 5's AI-powered filter stoked fierce rejection among devs and players. Other game developers and, especially, executives do see value in AI. Bethesda boss Todd Howard called it a potentially useful "tool," just not for generation. But the CEOs of EA and Ubisoft have championed AI as the tech of the future, with the latter investing heavily in "player-facing generative AI" specifically. 2025 hit Arc Raiders famously used loads of AI voices (and later replaced many with people), and Summer Game Fest 2026 has seen myriad AI-aided games. Getting game developers to talk about gen AI is not always easy. In the process of interviewing over 30 devs on the subject, many people refused to speak to me or requested anonymity. I wanted a thorough examination of the tech, and kept core questions to just three: How do you feel about gen AI in games and in game development? Do you want to use it? And how do you want it to be treated in the games industry? Perhaps pro-AI developers didn't want to talk to me or I just didn't run into any during my survey, because I heard an overwhelmingly negative assessment of generative AI's origins, capabilities, and risks. By the end, I'd heard dozens of developers make a case against using gen AI at all. What's wrong with gen AI? With their enormous physical server stacks, AI data centers guzzle water for cooling and incur massive power costs - with electricity draw for just one center equaling tens of thousands of homes - while the infrastructure required puts pressure on local communities and environments. These centers have also disrupted hardware markets and supply chains, leaving consumers facing price hikes as AI projects make key components scarce. RAM prices, for instance, have more than tripled in under two years. Meanwhile, AI-generated assets frequently rely on references which were scraped without creator permission. And many of the biggest AI providers, from OpenAI's ChatGPT to xAI's Grok, face legal action over what their AI tools produce, all while companies using these tools are grilled over how implementing AI often means firing people - sometimes after using them to train AI. Iron Lung and Dusk creator David Szymanski, who is "not categorically against AI as a whole technology," believes it needs to "clean up its act" before it can begin to be taken seriously. Like many devs, Szymanski is unwilling to "hand wave all the ethical concerns about plagiarism, environmental impact, and job security" tied to gen AI. When you generate words, images, or sounds with many of today's biggest AI tools, you can't know exactly what, or how many, references were used for that asset, and that may include a wealth of copyrighted work. David Gaider, former Dragon Age narrative lead turned Summerfall Studios co-founder, focuses on the moral issue. Artists did not consent to having "their data pillaged," he says, and he's not moved by the argument that AI "won't work as well" if it can't scrape literally everything. The counterargument is obvious: if rampant theft is integral to the tech as-is, perhaps it should not be allowed to exist as-is. The legal hazard is also enormous. Games have been pulled from sale over lapses in music copyright; serious regulation or litigation of AI-generated assets could shatter entire studios. To many, the tech isn't worth the copyright landmine. Marvel Rivals executive producer Danny Koo says this is partly why the hit hero shooter doesn't use gen AI at all. "I think it is better for us to very confidently say all the assets in Marvel Rivals are created by everyone on the team without any assistance from the outside, so it's not poisoned," he explains. There's another major risk to using gen AI in game development and beyond. When companies boast about replacing staff with AI, first of all, they may be lying, as Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick argues, and simply using AI as a smokescreen for cost-cutting. But when AI does truly stand in for people, it's often put on junior-level tasks. Wage-free labor might sound great to shareholders in the short-term, but multiple developers warn that eliminating junior positions jeopardizes the long-term health of the industry. Gaider worries, "How are we going to train up the next generation of devs if we eliminate every entry-level task?" Rami Ismail, veteran dev and consultant and once half of studio Vlambeer, sees "the collapse of the junior pipelines" brewing. And this is happening at a time when the games industry is already struggling with brain drain at the top after cataclysmic layoffs, with key devs exiting studios, or the industry altogether, and taking invaluable knowledge with them. Further cannibalization of junior roles by gen AI could shut out would-be talents, squeezing the industry's workforce from both ends and making a career in games even tougher to navigate. Why aren't devs using gen AI? If you can get past these concerns, devs say gen AI still cannot do what people can. Several who have tried it say the technology fails key variety and quality tests, and because it cannot create - it can only derive and imitate - it's unavoidably behind in a creative industry where it's already hard to stand out. We've heard the case for using AI for conceptual or non-final assets, but that brings concerns about the foundation you're laying for yourself with that approach. Gaider reasons that AI's inability to iterate consistently, capture intent, and establish replicable processes makes it impractical for something as complex as game development. "It would be frustrating as hell" to make games if you couldn't trace how you got certain results, he says. That's important for making more than one thing in isolation, and especially if you want to get better at making things. But because it is purely focused on output, gen AI use spirals: the more you use it, the more you have to use it, because by using it you avoid learning the skills to make things without it. "It wouldn't be so bad if generative AI was seen more as an assistant," Gaider finds, but often he sees people trying to "clean up" after AI is left to do the "important work" instead, which takes time and leads to "mediocre" outcomes. He adds: "It's not ready for prime time. There's just a lot of executives who really, really want it to be." New Blood head Dave Oshry says "we were fine for decades without it and we don't need it now," bluntly calling the tech "garbage." Koo reiterates that preserving the identity of Marvel Rivals and the passion of the dev team is priority. Ismail won't use it, he explains, because "I like my job" and won't offload it to a machine. Similarly, Pocketpair and Palworld comms lead John Buckley finds gen AI unnecessary because "we have a lot of artists" who like "doing stuff themselves." Buckley has fielded gen AI accusations throughout Palworld's life; he says Pocketpair doesn't use it and there's no discussion to be had at all. He reckons using AI as a search tool or coding assist is "a very different conversation," but on gen AI, he stresses, the case is shut: "Gamers don't want it." "This gen AI side of gaming feels kind of similar to the early crypto stuff," says Buckley. "It feels very intrusive. It feels like everyone who is super gung-ho about it isn't from the industry. They're, dare I say, outsiders looking to get rich quick. Where I think it's very different in this case is that gaming lives and dies by the consumers, the players, and the players say they don't want it." Szymanski interrogates a common sales pitch. "Right now the siren's song of AI is that it's really fast and really easy," he observes. "There's definitely a place for fast and easy, but there's also a place for slow and difficult." Szymanski believes creativity emerges when ideas meet problems. "If you have a copying algorithm solve all those problems for you, what exactly sets your finished work apart from the things the algorithm copied?" Whether or not it's being put to good use, gen AI in games is on the rise. A lead developer at a large studio who wished to remain anonymous believes all devs, even those opposed to AI, should examine what it is capable of, arguing "we have no choice because it's in your face" and "it's starting to impact how we work every day." Their "personal feeling is also mixed," but they hope that a better understanding of the tech will lead to "more right decisions" made about it. Nick Herman, co-founder of Dispatch maker AdHoc Studio, says his team is "not exploring" gen AI as an option, and "there's no version where we're ever gonna just write a script for AI". Despite this rejection, he wants to be open-minded about new technology. He remembers the early Photoshop days: some people said if you used the software, "you're a hack, that's not real art," but now "if you don't know Photoshop, you're not gonna get a job." "I personally don't have some hard-coded opinion that's so strong I'm not allowing that to change over time." Yet he sees no reason to use AI creatively, and can't shake a familiar feeling: "I definitely do have an initial reaction that this isn't how art should be made." The effects of gen AI When gen AI is used in games, it routinely fails to meet expectations. It's not necessarily that AI has no use cases whatsoever, but many devs told me it's being oversold and under-regulated, and they resent seeing it forced into roles it's not suited for, often despite resistance from people in those roles. Many devs have been told by higher-ups that AI will unlock their creativity, but a lot of those devs are expected to find the proof of that themselves. Yet heavy-handed integration can instead make AI an obstacle. Sam Barlow, a former Silent Hill writer now known for Her Story and Immortality, calls the current uses of gen AI "inefficient and broken." He proves Gaider's point, mentioning a colleague who was asked to "clean up" AI-generated dialogue for a lower rate on a shorter timeline. "But the actual work was much harder than writing everything fresh because they had to keep trying to figure out what the original intent was or fix things that made no sense at all," he says. Gen AI has been held up by some as an antidote to the swelling production costs and timelines in the industry, particularly for AAA games. Strange Scaffold boss Xalavier Nelson Jr., a prolific dev who's worked on over 100 games, says gen AI won't solve these time or money problems because it doesn't address their real cause, and if anything, could enable more excess. "Generative AI is a can button, not a should button, and every game you have loved is built off of shoulds," he argues. "For all the people who say it will let us finally make our big games faster and cheaper as the costs go exponentially up, the unspoken decision that has occurred is that rather than ask whether the size of the game is feasible, and whether it provides the thing that is most meaningful for a player, they have decided that the sheer scope is the god of their development process and it must be fulfilled at all costs." Bruce Straley is a Naughty Dog veteran best known for games like Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us, and he's now heading up Coven of the Chicken Foot as an indie. On gen AI, he admits, "I'm scared, is how I feel. I'm scared for what it means for everything that I've learned about game development. I'm scared for the old ways that I've thought about how to build a team, what I've learned about skill and craft." But, he maintains, "you still need people to have taste, and you still need people to understand craft to be able to get to an end result that is worth anything," pushing back on the "magic bullet" narrative. As I weigh the 32 interviews transcribed for this article against the endorsements showered on AI, much of what I see reads like conflict between people who want to do the work and those who just want to wish things into being. On top of the moral, environmental, and legal concerns, many devs do not understand the desire to outsource the processes that drew them to this field in the first place. "I always felt game development is one of those jobs you only do when you really want to do it," says Ismail, as "you're very unlikely to get rich in an industry that lays off people for making superhits". Developers told me they could not find a productive creative application for AI. That could be because the proposed efficiency gains have not materialized, the impact on team morale can be devastating, player goodwill can sour in an instant, or AI-generated work is reliably inferior. Even if all of this improved and gen AI became much more convincing and sustainable, there are still concerns of painting yourself into a corner by becoming reliant on volatile technology. There are measurable consequences and creative implications attached to generative AI, and people clearly care about how their art is made.

Shameless or honest? Epic's divides Unreal Engine users with AI concept art

Epic has slowly been integrating AI for some time now, but for many creatives, it's still a touchy subject. From scepticism to outright hatred, many have continued to express their dislike for the game company's embrace of AI tools, despite Epic's positive transparency around the controversial topic. Doubling down despite the backlash, Epic recently shared a video of how its artists leverage genAI in their concept art. The heated response to the innocuous video reveals just how multifaceted the AI debate has become - an uncertain ethical matter with no clear resolution. The video in question features Epic's artists taking us through their creative workflow, from early sketches to final concepts. While each step is meticulously human-made, elements such as GenMedia for Photoshop and Nano Banana with Unreal, refine the creative process in a seemingly organic way. While AI certainly streamlines creativity, the artists point out discrepancies that appear, such as missing details and colour errors. "That's why it's a starting point, not a finish line," one of the artists claims, honing in on the importance of reviewing and correcting the AI's work. While their transparent and measured approach to the technology feels like a positive step, critics weren't deterred from lambasting the video for its casual use of AI, prompting a strong ethical divide online. Fierce backlash claimed the video was supporting "anti-art technology", while others touted it as "shameless". Another chimed in "You just literally... insulted the entire real artists community," while one critic added, "Exploiting the labor of others through generative models to pretend its 'whats in your mind' isn't a lawful ground for the theft of creative labor." Others highlighted Epic's controversial staff layoffs, with one critic writing, "First you fire 1000 mostly valuable employees for a bulls**t reason, then proudly admit to using AI for your creative process? For the company that gave us Unreal Engine, I expected FAR better." For others, Epic's transparency was a welcome shift from secretive AI practise - while not everyone agreed with it, for some, honesty was the best policy. "While I have criticisms about current use of AI in general, like the flood of slop spam it's enabled, I have a lot less objections to how it's being used at Epic. GenMedia took a sketch that was clearly drawn by hand and rendered it in a 3D-like style," one commenter wrote. "Generative AI when it's used this way empowers traditional 2D and 3D concept artists to make more iterations and better work," another added, while one wrote, "this feels like concept art just got a cheat code." I find myself at an intersection, struggling to accept that AI is an inevitable evolution in the industry. Continuous issues around copyright, career safety and quality output often leave me on the back foot when it comes to generative AI, but what deters me most is the inherent death of craft. Yes, AI can help you cut pesky corners, but the reward of human craft is lost. Just because AI can, doesn't mean it should. With an endless sea of concept art at the click of a button, will abundance mean we lose focus on quality, only to inevitably drown in the slop? For more AI news, check out how Unity AI will let you build entire games with just words or take a look at why game studios are scrambling to master AI.

Fortnite Behind the Scenes Video Reveals How Epic Games Uses Generative AI to Help Create Concept Art and Designs for New Skins

Fortnite maker Epic Games has offered a rare glimpse behind the scenes at how it designs new character skins and in-game locations -- and shown how certain stages involve the use of generative AI tools. In a video published to the Unreal Engine YouTube channel, Epic Games shows how a new Fortnite character is designed and iterated on by hand before being modified using an AI prompt to look more like a 3D model. The video makes a clear distinction between the ideation stage and later changes made by AI generation -- and all of this still in the concept art stage, before any asset is recreated in-game. But the footage also shows how AI generation will create unwanted additions or errors, which then must be identified and corrected in a further design pass by the (human) artist. "The design is king, AI can generate generic stuff all day, but that's not what we're doing here," an Epic Games staff member says. "It just skips ahead in the timeline so [the artist] can focus on honing in on the design and crafting it exactly how he wants it to be." The video's publication follows repeated questions from Fortnite fans over potential AI use for certain in-game assets -- such as a poster showing a nine-toed character in a hammock -- that the company has previously kept quiet over answering. While the video makes clear that AI isn't used for designing characters from the ground up, it also makes clear that generative AI use is now a part of the company's workflow -- and opens up the possibility that mistakes could still get missed within subsequent human checks. When designing concept art for in-game locations, it's a similar process. Sketches are drawn by hand in Photoshop, then recreated in 3D via the commonly-used 3D modelling tool Blender. Images from here are then adapted within Photoshop using AI prompts to explore alternative takes, such as day or night versions of the same scene, or to add destruction from a meteor strike. "At every stage of the design, artists continue to polish and refine, but now teams can revise faster, so artists have more oppurtunities to explore," Epic says. "All along the way there are continual reviews, before anything makes it into our games, and artists are careful to respect originality, track providence of their work, and ensure the finished product meets Epic's high quality standards." Epic Games is no stranger to AI technology, of course, having previously used generative speech technology to reproduce James Earl Jones' Darth Vader portrayal. But despite having the rights and approval of Disney, the character's inclusion proved controversial, especially as players quickly began making Vader say things more aligned with the dark side of the Force. Last year, Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney suggested that Valve should ditch Steam's AI Generated Content Disclosure label for games, as he believes AI use will become so ubiquitous it will make any warning redundant. "Why stop at AI use?" Sweeney wrote on social media. "We could have mandatory disclosures for what shampoo brand the developer uses. Customers deserve to know lol. "It doesn't matter any more," he continued. "The AI tag is relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation. It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production." Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social