Epic boss Tim Sweeney caused a serious stir earlier this week when he publicly declared that the Fortnite developer is transitioning towards "AI first" production, using AI-driven tech to (supposedly) streamline all facets of game development.

As you can imagine, Sweeney's incredibly pro-AI stance has attracted a lot of criticism, as conversations around the integrity of elements like generative AI, and the overall usefulness of AI workflows to continue to rage on.

But as pointed out by Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier in his latest video, this company-wide pivot to AI doesn't just impact Epic and its output; the goal here is to essentially push these same AI workflows onto who-knows-how-many other studios via Unreal Engine.

And if you're already against the industry's apparent obsession with AI, then this makes for a fairly horrifying realisation.

Indeed, just think about how many developers utilise Unreal Engine at this point. There's almost zero doubt that Unreal Engine 6 — or whatever the next major iteration ends up being called — will be packed with AI-based development tools, and this could fundamentally change the ways in which many of your favourite studios actually make their games.

"[Sweeney's] saying that they're going all-in on AI, and that includes Unreal Engine," Schreier begins.

"Making the newest versions of Unreal heavily into AI and putting a lot of AI features in them will have a huge impact on the way games are made, because Unreal is so ubiquitous in the video game industry. So many companies use it," he explains.

Unless the whole AI bubble bursts and all of this stuff comes crashing down around it, it's not hard to imagine a future where more and more of the industry surrenders itself to this kind of thinking — especially when it comes to bigger publishers.

What this will eventually mean for the creative process, development timelines, and of course, job security, remains to be seen — but it feels like we're on a very slippery slope.

What are your thoughts on all of this? Where do you draw the line? Make your own engine in the comments section below.

[source youtube.com]