Vampire Survivors developer 'reviewing' Fortnite collaboration in wake of Epic's gen AI stance

Poncle is among those not happy with Wednesday's State of Unreal in relation to Epic's usage of generative AI.

As part of Wednesday's State of Unreal showcase, Epic Games announced a series of Fortnite collaborations that were in the works. Among the games that were set to offer Fortnite content was Vampire Survivors, but developer Poncle walked away from today's showcase feeling unsure about its deal with Epic given how much of a role generative AI appears to have in Unreal Engine's future. Shortly after State of Unreal, Poncle announced that it is internally reviewing whether to move forward with this collaboration.

Poncle - "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."

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— Wario64 (@wario64.bsky.social) June 17, 2026 at 10:34 AM

"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," reads an official post from Poncle on the studio's Discord (via Wario64). "We'll let you know if anything moves forward."

As part of today's State of Unreal livestream, Epic Games outlined plans for Unreal Engine 6, some of which includes a central role for gen AI models. Epic notes that models like Claude and Cortex can be used to streamline "tedious tasks," but an increasing number of game developers are taking firmer stances against generative AI as a whole. That includes Poncle, which has shown no interest in being part of anything involving gen AI.

Poncle continues to work on several projects. That includes additional content for Vampire Survivors, the recently released Vampire Crawlers, and supporting upcoming projects like Auroch Digital's Warhammer Survivors. It sounds reasonable to assume that all of this work will be done by humans, as it is meant to be.

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