Vampire Survivors studio Poncle appears to be reconsidering its plans for a lucrative Fortnite crossover, after Epic Games this week confirmed it now uses generative AI tools within the battle royale’s art and design process.
A recent behind-the-scenes video published by Epic Games showed how the company now uses generative AI prompts to adjust hand-drawn designs for Fortnite character skins and art assets used in the game’s concept phase. The video showed AI being used to turn sketches into more detailed designs, or experiment with alternative versions of artwork (turning a daylight scene into night-time, for example). The video also showed AI introducing errors or unwanted additions which also needed to be corrected by hand — something Fortnite players previously suggested may have resulted in odd-looking assets making their way into the live game.
Epic Games continued its focus on generative AI usage in yesterday’s State of Unreal livestream, where it showed a glimpse at upcoming Unreal Engine 6 capabilities. The company demoed how its updated engine will broadly incorporate generative AI tools to iterate and build upon 3D environments.
“For UE6, we see LLMs, generative AI models, and tools like Claude and Codex playing a central role in helping you build content faster while maintaining the creative control you need,” wrote Unreal Engine development lead Marcus Wassmer in an accompanying blog post.
All of this appears to have impacted Poncle’s enthusiasm for appearing in Fortnite, as part of Epic Games’ plan to feature numerous in-game crossovers with titles available via the Epic Game Store.
“Following today’s news about gen AI usage by Epic to create all sorts of game assets, including Fortnite characters, we’re currently ‘reviewing’ our collaboration with Fortnite,” Poncle wrote in a message posted to reddit (thanks, iFireMonkey). “We’ll let you know if anything moves forward.”
Poncle’s message has received praise from Vampire Survivors fans, who have said that the indie roguelike shooter should now distance itself from Epic. But Fortnite has, of course, publicly featured AI generation for some time — such as its chatty recreation of Darth Vader that could reply to players with the voice of James Earl Jones.
Epic Games’ public discussion of its AI usage has drawn an unsurprisingly mixed reaction across the internet, with many criticizing the company’s embracing of generative AI tools particularly after devastating staff cuts that saw around 1,000 staff members laid off. Others, however, has suggested Epic is simply acknowledging the reality of changing game development, amid growing AI usage across the industry.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
