Creative GenerationConsumer Facing
Reviewed and published by trentmaziarz, March 18, 2026. Discovered and drafted by our automated research pipeline.
In late 2025, Fortnite players and gaming press accused Epic of including AI-generated images in Fortnite's Chapter 7 Season 1 update — pointing to background posters, billboards, and a Free Pass song with telltale signs of AI tools. Epic has not confirmed or denied using AI in these specific assets. One artist publicly defended their work as hand-made, and a player survey found a large majority opposed to AI content in the game.
Details
Community members flagged several in-game assets as potentially AI-generated: a yeti poster showing the wrong number of toes (a common AI artifact), billboards described as visually "smeary," anime-style graffiti with distortion patterns typical of AI image generators, and an AI-generated song called "LATATA" included in the Free Pass. Artist Sean Dove confirmed he accidentally used an AI-generated reference image while creating a Battle Pass spray — but maintained the final artwork was his own. An unofficial poll on the Fortnite subreddit found that approximately 85% of respondents opposed AI content in the game. CEO Tim Sweeney denied that Epic uses AI coding tools internally but did not address visual asset production. Separately, a community account reported in February 2026 that Epic has begun integrating generative AI into cosmetic production pipelines, reportedly to the displeasure of internal developers — though this claim has not been confirmed by official sources.
Products affected
Fortnite
Sources & Evidence
News Article
Other practices by Epic Games
OtherAfter widespread protests from artists in December 2022, Epic's portfolio platform ArtStation introduced a "NoAI" label that artists can apply to their work to signal they do not want it used in AI training datasets. Epic also updated its terms of service to commit that it will not use or license any ArtStation content — labeled or not — for AI training purposes.OtherEpic provides a plugin for Unreal Engine 5 that lets game developers train AI-controlled characters and agents by having them learn through trial and error — similar to how a person gets better at a task by practicing. The tool, called Learning Agents, launched as an experimental feature with Unreal Engine 5.3 in September 2023 and is aimed at developers, not players.OtherUnreal Engine 5 supports NVIDIA's DLSS technology, which uses AI to make games run more smoothly on compatible graphics cards by generating additional frames and sharpening images — without the full processing cost of rendering everything natively. Epic has also integrated NVIDIA's ACE tools, which give developers AI-powered options for animating digital human faces and generating NPC speech.
Have evidence about Epic Games's AI practices? Submit a report.
Report a Sighting →