Epic Games is hosting an ‘AI MegaJam’ with a $50,000 prize pool

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The Fortnite developer wants participants to vibe code games that can run in Unreal Engine.

Donovan Erskine October 22, 2026 1:54 PM Epic Games 1

Epic Games is leaning further into AI with the AI MegaJam, a game dev contest based around vibe coding. Participants are urged to partner with humans and AI agents to build games that can run in Epic’s Unreal Engine. 

The AI MegaJam starts on November 12 and ends on November 15. As written on the contest’s itch.io page, participants are encouraged to use any AI tools, including coding agents and asset generation. Teams can be as small as one person and as large as five, with no restrictions on the amount of AI agents used.

Submitted games need to be able to run in Unreal Engine, or Unreal Engine UEFN, which is the version of the Unreal Engine that exists within Fortnite. Participants can develop their games from home, but Epic will also host in-person sessions at Digital Jungle in San Francisco, where participants can work with employees from Anthropic, Google, Meshy, OpenAI, and SpaceXSI, among others.

Winners will be selected among three categories: Best Overall, Best Overall UEFN, and Best Student Project. The first, second, and third place finishers will receive $7,500, $5,000, and $2,500, respectively. 

The announcement comes not long after Epic announced that it had vibe coded a new version of the Epic Games launcher, which the company said made their launcher run faster than Steam.

Shacknews staff does not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their content. Shacknews strictly prohibits the use of its content for AI training or to generate text, including text in the style or format used for this publication. Shacknews reserves all rights to this work.

Donovan Erskine News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_

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