If you heard the sound of a wet fart reverberating throughout the world yesterday, it’ll likely be thanks to the most recent State of Unreal, where Epic offered some more concrete details regarding its plans for Unreal Engine 6. Namely, that it wants to infuse it with generative AI, and there’s also some bollocks about using your Fortnite skins in other games and vice versa. But speaking of Fortnite, the same showcase announced a Vampire Survivors collab was on the cards, only for developer poncle to learn about the generative AI stuff the same time as the rest of us and express some concern over it.
Over on the Vampire Survivors subreddit, a user posted about the Fortnite collab, with many comments suggesting a general disinterest. With the news of Epic’s plans for Unreal Engine 6 out in the wild, however, poncle had this to say in the comments of the post: “Following today’s news about gen AI usage by Epic to create all sort of game assets, including Fortnite characters, we’re currently ‘reviewing’ our collaboration with Fortnite. We’ll let you know if anything moves forward.”
This obviously doesn’t mean that they’re fully withdrawing from the collab. “Reviewing” could easily mean ensuring that none of the Vampire Survivors Fortnite skins, assets and the like were made either outright using or getting help from generative AI (something Epic are actively doing at the moment). So, don’t go telling your granny that good ole poncle is steering clear of Fortnite, even if I hope that’s the route they go down.
Epic have been particularly petulant regarding the use of AI in games, with CEO Tim Sweeney even saying that Valve and digital storefronts as a whole shouldn’t bother with generative AI disclosures last year. Sweeney is wrong, of course, because the stuff is poison – a poison that’s even affecting the likes of Crazy Taxi and Tomb Raider. Please stop doing that, video game studios, it makes you look very silly.
