Epic’s Unreal Fest 2026 has officially kicked off in Chicago, and last night’s broadcast of State of Unreal made some ambitious announcements when it comes to the company’s BR title, Fortnite. During the show, Epic Games announced 30+ collabs coming to Fortnite later this year, featuring heavyweights like Sonic, Control Resonant, and more. Among those was Vampire Survivors, a horror hit that was highly anticipated. However, soon after the show ended, devs now have some serious doubts about the collab going through due to Epic’s gen-AI push.

Vampire Survivors Devs “Reviewing” Fortnite Collab After Epic Showcases Gen-AI Usage for In-Game Assets

At the State of Unreal 2026 broadcast last night, Epic Games announced an incoming collab between Fortnite and the hit horror roguelite game Vampire Survivors. The collab was intended to be a part of Fortnite Battle Royale where players would see skins of the game’s characters hit the Item Shop, like any other collab in the game.

However, the excitement that was built among fans after the announcement was short-lived when Vampire Survivors dev Poncle issued a statement soon after the State of Unreal presentation ended. In a Reddit post regarding the collab, the dev Poncle left a comment hinting that they might be reconsidering the partnership with Epic, as they said, “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. We’ll let you know if anything moves forward.”

This comment comes after Epic posted a video a couple of days ago about how artists use GenMedia to conceptualise the design of Fortnite characters and POIs, further adding to the announcement made at the main event last night. Epic Games also demonstrated how they use gen-AI models to change the lighting of a scene or add objects to it.

Furthermore, when it comes to its next big product, Unreal Engine 6, Epic announced in a blog that the engine will use Anthropic’s Claude AI and Codex, which will play a “central role” in building content faster while maintaining creative control. The new engine will also add an MCP protocol, so that developers can mix and match leading-edge models and build custom integrations of all sorts on an open UE6 MCP foundation.

This is certainly a matter of concern for devs at Poncle who may be under the impression that Epic would recreate Vampire Survivors Fortnite collab skins using a similar method. However, neither Epic nor Poncle has issued any further statements on the matter since the Reddit comment went viral online.