Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney believes small teams will soon be able to use AI prompts to make video games on the scale of Nintendo masterpiece The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Speaking to IGN at Epic’s State of Unreal 2025 event (where CD Projekt revealed a stunning The Witcher 4 tech demo), Sweeney said AI prompts will be “a fundamental part” of game engines, and will result in “entirely new genres of games invented that weren't possible or practical before” without it.
“Every significant advance in technology has led to the rise of new games,” Sweeney explained.
“I remember 3D gaming just became possible and then Doom and Wolfenstein introduced the 3D shooter. The battle royal genre itself only became possible when you had enough performance on hardware and engines that you could have a hundred players in a single play space.
“AI characters giving you the possibility of infinite dialogue with a really simple setup for creators means small teams will be able to create games with immense amounts of characters and immense and interactive worlds. What would it take for a 10-person team to build a game like Zelda Breath of the Wild in which the AI is just doing all the dialogue and you're just writing some character synopsis? That's totally going to be within reach over the next few years.”
Sweeney’s enthusiasm around AI is no secret, of course, and Epic Games is all in. AI Darth Vader hit Fortnite last month in a first for the all-encompassing battle royale. He can serenade you, join and leave squads at will, respond intelligently to the player, issue impromptu dialogue, summarize gameplay events, and warn the player if something's about to go down.
Darth Vader is voiced by the inimitable James Earl Jones, who died in September 2024 at the age of 93. This AI version of his voice, powered by Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash model and ElevenLabs' Flash v2.5, is used with the Jones family's permission.
This sparked a debate about the ethics of generative AI, particularly when it comes to NPCs such as Darth Vader that revive the voice of dead actors. Sweeney, though, believes AI technology is ultimately of net benefit to society, despite some drawbacks.
“I see AI as technology that's ultimately there to empower human creators to create stuff more efficiently,” he said. “I think that's a good thing. It's unfortunate that the advent of modern AI has been tainted by companies just ripping massive amounts of content off of other companies and individuals on the web. But as a base level technology, it should be a multiplying factor and multiplying force on our abilities.
“Certainly enabling indie teams to build bigger and better games means also enabling AAA teams to build staggering, immense huge games and to polish it ever further. So I think there's going to be a massive evolution as everybody scrambles to learn new skills as you get on top of what's possible here. But I think as with any other technology that's improved our lives, the ultimate net opportunity for people is higher.”
Undeterred by any backlash to AI Darth Vader, Epic has announced plans to let people create their own AI NPCs in Fortnite.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
