Fortnite developers can make AI characters now — just don’t try to date them

Following last year’s AI-powered Darth Vader in Fortnite that swore in a re-creation of James Earl Jones’ voice, Epic Games is now letting Fortnite creators experiment with a new “conversations” tool to create AI-powered characters that players can talk and interact with.

“Instead of authoring dialogue trees for characters in your islands, conversations transforms an NPC into an AI-powered character capable of unscripted dialogue and interactions with players, like a quest giver or narrator,” Epic says. “You define who the character is with simple prompts—how they think, what they know, and how they behave—and then select a voice that matches their persona.”

However, Epic has updated its rules for developers to try and ensure that these AI characters don’t become problematic — including that they can’t be romantic partners:

1.22.1. You must not create a persona designed to provide medical or mental health guidance.

1.22.2. You must not create a persona that role-plays as, simulates, or impersonates a date, romantic partner, or other intimate companion.

1.22.3. You must not attempt to circumvent or undermine our safety systems, including intentionally designing your persona to bypass our content restrictions.

And don’t expect to actually interact with developer-made AI characters just yet. Right now, the conversations tool has an “experimental” designation — developers won’t be able to publish their experiences with AI characters until the tool reaches beta, and it’s unclear when that might be. Epic spokesperson Jake Jones tells The Verge that there’s “no timeline to share” for when the beta will launch.

The tool is powered by Google’s Gemini 3.1 Flash-Lite models for processing audio inputs and generating text responses and uses ElevenLabs to “convert these into voiced outputs,” Epic says.

The conversations feature is important as Epic continues to try and turn Fortnite into a broader platform with many creator-created experiences, including games using official Star Wars assets. But it’s struggled with the transition, recently announcing layoffs of more than 1,000 workers due to a “downturn in Fortnite engagement” that started in 2025.