Fortnite-maker Epic Games confirms ‘huge pivot’ towards using AI

The announcement brings a fresh focus to the long-running debate around the role of AI in the creative and arts sector.

And in 2025, actor union Sag-Aftra filed a complaint over the use of AI to recreate the voice of Star Wars villain Darth Vader in Fortnite.

Lisha Howen is a full-time game designer and says she “isn’t completely against AI”, but disagrees with it being used to fully generate artwork and graphics.

“I have friends who are game developers that use AI to aid them with writing code,” says the 23-year-old, who doesn’t work for Epic.

“And I have artists who don’t use AI at all because artists, especially in the game industry, hate it because it’s taking away their jobs.

“You can tell when something’s been generated by AI, it looks terrible, it’s cheap, and it’s making people lose their jobs and lose their income.”

But Howen, who is also a Fortnite live-streamer, doesn’t think that people will be turned off from playing Epic’s flagship game.

She explains that while there is a “vocal minority” who play Fortnite, the core player base “don’t really care about the external politics of it all”.

“They’ll just keep playing like nothing’s changed.”