Epic's AI MegaJam: four days, five humans, unlimited agents, and MCP in Unreal

Epic Games has announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, a four-day game jam built around AI tools. Teams build a playable game in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) and can bring “any AI tools”, from asset generation to coding agents.

The format

• Dates. The jam runs 12 to 15 November. A kickoff livestream with the theme reveal is on 11 November at 11 AM PST.
• Teams. Solo, or up to five people. There is no limit on agents.
• Where. Online, at some local Unreal Engine and UEFN community chapters, or in person at Digital Jungle in San Francisco on 14 and 15 November. In-person registration opens 1 November and space is limited. Epic says teams from Anthropic, Google, Meshy, OpenAI, SpaceXSI and others will build there.
• Who. Developers aged 18 and over with an active Epic Games account, subject to the Official Rules.
• Deadline. Submissions close 15 November at 5:59 PM PST; winners are announced by 29 January 2027.

The rules that matter

From the itch.io jam page:

• Do not start building before 12 November, and declare anything made earlier.
• Pick one engine. You cannot enter with both Unreal Engine and UEFN.
• Third-party assets, for example from Fab, are fine with the right license, listed in your submission.
• Gameplay has to go beyond Epic’s starter templates.
• Unreal Engine entries are packaged builds under 1 GB, with a 30 to 60 second gameplay video.

Prizes

The jam page puts cash prizes at $65,000 in total. Best Overall Unreal Engine, Best Overall UEFN and Best Student Project each pay $7,500, $5,000 and $2,500 for the top three. Modifier categories include Best Team ($5,000), Solo Driver, best visuals, best mobile game, best dev log, and a Walkie-Talkie award for narrative UEFN games with LLM-powered characters ($2,500 each). Standout entries can also win development continuation grants of up to $50,000. Some AI partners will give jammers tool credits; Epic says details are coming.

The MCP angle

Epic’s prep list tells teams to get their agentic coding tools working and “get comfortable with Model Context Protocol (MCP)” before kickoff, with setup guides for MCP in both Unreal Engine and UEFN. That makes the jam a public test of how far agent-driven editor control has come: whether teams can drive levels, Blueprints and builds through MCP under deadline pressure, not just generate assets.

Why it matters

Game jams shape habits. An official Epic jam built around agents and MCP signals where Epic wants Unreal tooling to go, and the dev logs from the Glass Box category should show what actually worked.