Ex-Blizzard employee has ‘vibe’ coded a new game engine with backing from AMD: ‘We’re developing 93x faster than we ever did before with Unreal’
Former Blizzard developer Mark Kern has created Kun-Zhi, a new game engine designed from the ground up to be AI-native. The engine, named after the Tibetan word for “Ground of all,” powers Kern’s upcoming game Em-8er and was developed using AI coding over a six-month period.
Kern claims that development with Kun-Zhi is 93 times faster than their previous workflow with Unreal Engine. He attributes this dramatic improvement to the engine being built “100% AI-first” rather than having AI features added as an afterthought. The engine is written primarily in C with some Elixir, built on top of Vulkan.
The Kun-Zhi Engine is scheduled for public release, with early access available first to project backers. Kern is also offering corporate sponsorships and has already secured partnerships with hardware companies Razer and AMD, indicating strong industry interest in the AI-driven development approach.
This move represents a significant shift in game engine development philosophy, prioritizing AI-assisted coding from the foundation rather than as an additional tool. The engine’s performance claims and backing from major hardware manufacturers suggest potential industry impact for AI-native game development workflows.