Epic Games founder and CEO.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
Many think AI will be a bad thing for gaming but I do agree here that matter fact it's gonna open doors to new possibilities and more awesome games from fellow developers.
The games we've long wanted, which didn't exist because they'd cost several times more to make than they'd earn back, will soon become possible. As will the games developers wanted to build, but couldn't with the resources available. It'll be a new golden age of gaming.
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i just shipped netplay in a game whose architecture was never planned to accommodate it. my time was split as follows:
3-4 days of grilling frontier models on the problem space and drafting the spec. over this time i found good answers to every single problem and my skepticism gradually dissolved. i went from "it's impossible for it to play well with 500 active entities to sync" to "it may be actually feasible and even rather cheap and it would play well even across continents". it's a bespoke design that fits this game specifically, it reuses the strong parts about my previous rearchitecture and it's stripped to the core, reusing as much of the existing game machinery.
1 full day of opus implementing the spec, along with multiple rounds of reviews by other models (sol, argon). i used ultra effort and everything worked flawlessly when it was done.
this differs quite a lot from multiple previous attempts to add netplay where things went wrong and i got stuck with nasty debugging. this time i put much more human effort (asking the right questions) upfront and got an amazing result.
When I was writing Unreal Engine 1, my time was divided as follows:
- Around 30% went to seriously deep coding on hard problems: assembly language texture mappers, C++ BSP trees, data persistence, object oriented systems design, and networking.
- Around 70% was just typing and refactoring large bodies of code needed for a complete engine feature set. This was not hard, and while I was doing it my mind was mostly on the deeper coding topics, thinking and planning for what's next. It didn't feel much different from vibe coding today, except that it was just me typing code on an IBM Model M keyboard rather than prompting it and reviewing the results.
So, it has always seemed perfectly logical that we would rely on AI for that 70%, once the AI could do it with a similar quality standard as we could, which has never been perfection. It came as no surprise that, after a few years of AI model evolution, it was able to take the reigns on that 70% and free up programmers' time for more valuable tasks.
What's more of a surprise is the emergence of AI as a sort of insta-Carmack able to solve hard technical problems quite cleverly and often cleanly, and that it's able to reason about and work in complex 3D scenes both by operating the tools and by directly understanding the raw data files.
I abandoned assembly language in 1998 when out-of-order CPUs made much simpler C/C++ code faster, and never I missed it. If prompting through architectural documents, concept art, and design plans can transcend typing code and tweaking vertices, that will enable developers to spend their time on higher-level, higher value technical and creative tasks.
What matters is the end product, whether it's a game or an engine. Anything developers can do to try out more ideas and make better software and games faster is a win for everyone.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
More devs need to speak up like Micah and stop letting the online “AI slop” mob intimidate them into silence.
The more creators stand openly behind their work, the less power these boycott campaigns have. This culture won’t change if everyone stays quiet.
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Snake rogue-lite for people who love challenge: store.steampowered.com/app/4…
3,063 commits
My solo-developed game with AI support launches November 3!
Snake: Gridbreaker is an action roguelite made in Godot, inspired by the original Snake. It has different classes, bosses, upgrades, and a lot of mechanics built around the snake's body.
After 3,063 commits, it's finally releasing into Early Access on November 3!
I wanted to share a few things from my experience as a solo developer.
Developers who are getting value from AI should speak up. There's safety in numbers. MOST developers are doing it and loving it - and if they're not talking about it it's mostly out of fear for haters attacking them, their product, and their company.
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This is amazing!
Well, as you've probably noticed, there's a controversial discussion going on, and since controversy isn't something I shy away from, I'd like to chip in.
Specifically I would like to show example of using Ai acceleration to achieve YOUR vision while maintain absolute control over the result, hence this thread.
So here's a tool I've made, which I'll talk about a bit more in the comments.
#gamedev #indiedev
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
Well, as you've probably noticed, there's a controversial discussion going on, and since controversy isn't something I shy away from, I'd like to chip in.
Specifically I would like to show example of using Ai acceleration to achieve YOUR vision while maintain absolute control over the result, hence this thread.
So here's a tool I've made, which I'll talk about a bit more in the comments.
#gamedev #indiedev
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
my ai-generated games have reached millions of players globally :D
and helped me survive the downfall of the industry over the last 3 years
after being a hardcore programmer for the last 12 years,
i have stopped writing any code since the last 2 years - even removed all the IDEs
my coding language now is: english (or hindi)
>the publishers i work with love my games
>the players love the games
>i spent less time developing, more time researching and ideating
win-win for everyone?
Developers who are getting value from AI should speak up. There's safety in numbers. MOST developers are doing it and loving it - and if they're not talking about it it's mostly out of fear for haters attacking them, their product, and their company.
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One game used to take me 2-3 months to finish in UEFN, now it takes no more than 2 weeks. The Ai/MCP was an absolute game changer we got in game dev scene
The games we've long wanted, which didn't exist because they'd cost several times more to make than they'd earn back, will soon become possible. As will the games developers wanted to build, but couldn't with the resources available. It'll be a new golden age of gaming.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
Not yet, though I am just as excited as you all when making these posts.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
I recently had a great chat with Tim. He truly is one of the few gaming visionaries who gets it.
We all want gaming to remain at the pinnacle of the entertainment industry. That means giving teams more and better tools to bring their visions to life.
The best part? It’s already happening. From indie studios to AAA developers, teams are increasingly embracing AI-enabled workflows.
Now comes the crucial part: earning players’ trust by showing them that these tools will make their games better, not worse.
The games we've long wanted, which didn't exist because they'd cost several times more to make than they'd earn back, will soon become possible. As will the games developers wanted to build, but couldn't with the resources available. It'll be a new golden age of gaming.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney believes AI could lead to a “golden age of gaming.”
He says AI could change the way games are made by helping devs with many of the repetitive and time-consuming parts of development.
According to Sweeney, this could allow smaller teams to create games that would normally require much larger teams and much bigger budgets.
“We’re entering a golden age of gaming.”
Sweeney doesnt want to replace devs and believes AI can handle more of the technical work while developers spend more time on ideas and creativity.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
A majority of developers using AI just honestly keep to themselves.
Discords, chat rooms and products are where they are. Tinkering, building and ignoring the world. Watching some of these young kids learn development at the speed of light is encouraging.
I’ve watched people gain taste, build tools, learn systems, explain complex technical concepts way above their punching skill. The experimental process is cheap, the fear of failing is immeasurably tiny, the risk of challenging mistakes and learning is through the roof.
Developers who are getting value from AI should speak up. There's safety in numbers. MOST developers are doing it and loving it - and if they're not talking about it it's mostly out of fear for haters attacking them, their product, and their company.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
Gamedev ON! I’m using AI.
I’ll help you do it too!
Developers who are getting value from AI should speak up. There's safety in numbers. MOST developers are doing it and loving it - and if they're not talking about it it's mostly out of fear for haters attacking them, their product, and their company.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
The bottleneck in AI game development isn't the models anymore. It's my own creativity.
AI has allowed me to approach genres that historically required a lot of prior knowledge and experience, and it teaches me along the way. E.g. I'm building a heavily physics-based game (excavator simulator) and a music experience.
I learn in real time while pulling off work that used to take specialized teams months. The impossible is now within reach :-)
All this makes it an insane time for juniors breaking in. You can rapidly build real experience without being encumbered by the knowledge of what used to be impossible. AI is so new and changing so fast that there’s no large body of entrenched experience to overcome. The way we prompt today is already very different from a year ago.
What it takes is an open mind, curiosity, and grit!
And a lot of the seasoned veterans I’m talking to are having the time of their lives. They can finally apply their experience to pure creative direction and let the AI execute.
Wild time to be making games... and to be alive in general.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
I have fallen back in love with game making because of how fast I can tinker on game ideas.
The games we've long wanted, which didn't exist because they'd cost several times more to make than they'd earn back, will soon become possible. As will the games developers wanted to build, but couldn't with the resources available. It'll be a new golden age of gaming.
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
Epic Games released an official plugin that lets Claude Code control Unreal Engine directly.
It connects Claude Code to the Unreal Editor and exposes hundreds of editor tools across 30+ toolsets:
→ Actors, Blueprints and materials
→ Niagara effects, Control Rigs and Sequencer
→ State Trees, widgets and the Gameplay Ability System
→ Automation testing
Install it from Anthropic's official plugin marketplace:
/plugin install unreal-engine-skills-for-claude-code@claude-plugins-official
In Unreal, enable the ModelContextProtocol and AllToolsets plugins, then start the MCP server with the editor open.
Works on Mac, Linux, and Windows through Git Bash or WSL.
github.com/EpicGames/unreal-…
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Tim Sweeney retweeted
This is 100% correct and on point.
2026 is the year most programmers get on board in a serious manor. Those who wait of hand wave it all away will likely regret that in the future.
Your time is valuable and limited. Once you get up and running on ai coding a pretty magical thing happens. You have more time for more important matters. Harder coding tasks. Design tasks. Marketing tasks. Whatever it is.
I know most indies think ai anything is kryptonite. That's ok. It really is a war of attrition, and it's also ok if people never adopt it. But I think that latter point will put you are a disadvantage competitively just from a time standpoint and what you can do with it.
Do not fear it. Do not handwave it away. Embrace it on any level you feel comfortable. At some point the lightbulb will go off and you realize how much more you can get done or just enjoy some more free time.
When I was writing Unreal Engine 1, my time was divided as follows:
- Around 30% went to seriously deep coding on hard problems: assembly language texture mappers, C++ BSP trees, data persistence, object oriented systems design, and networking.
- Around 70% was just typing and refactoring large bodies of code needed for a complete engine feature set. This was not hard, and while I was doing it my mind was mostly on the deeper coding topics, thinking and planning for what's next. It didn't feel much different from vibe coding today, except that it was just me typing code on an IBM Model M keyboard rather than prompting it and reviewing the results.
So, it has always seemed perfectly logical that we would rely on AI for that 70%, once the AI could do it with a similar quality standard as we could, which has never been perfection. It came as no surprise that, after a few years of AI model evolution, it was able to take the reigns on that 70% and free up programmers' time for more valuable tasks.
What's more of a surprise is the emergence of AI as a sort of insta-Carmack able to solve hard technical problems quite cleverly and often cleanly, and that it's able to reason about and work in complex 3D scenes both by operating the tools and by directly understanding the raw data files.
I abandoned assembly language in 1998 when out-of-order CPUs made much simpler C/C++ code faster, and never I missed it. If prompting through architectural documents, concept art, and design plans can transcend typing code and tweaking vertices, that will enable developers to spend their time on higher-level, higher value technical and creative tasks.
What matters is the end product, whether it's a game or an engine. Anything developers can do to try out more ideas and make better software and games faster is a win for everyone.
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