Players and developers who want to see Unreal Engine 6 in action will have to wait a bit longer, but they could see a preview within the next couple of years. It’s been three years since Unreal Engine 5 was made available to the public, and since then, it has furthered UE’s dominance in the gaming industry. While there are still a handful of in-house engines in use, such as Bethesda’s Creation (The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Starfield) and id Tech (Doom), Capcom’s RE Engine (Resident Evil), EA’s Frostbite (Battlefield, Mass Effect, Dead Space, assorted sports titles), Crytek’s CryEngine (Crysis, Hunt Showdown, Star Citizen, Kindgom Come: Deliverance), to name a few but when it comes to indie developers, and a number of other AAA studios, UE is still the go-to choice for many.
Fortnite continues to be one of Epic Games’ largest sources of revenue, so it’s no wonder that the Epic Games CEO repeatedly mentioned it in a recent interview with Lex Fridman when asked about the current state of Unreal Engine 6. Sweeney explains that there are currently two very distinct uses of Unreal Engine 5. They are either for Fortnite-related projects, such as adding new APIs and features, or game development, but not all features have been, or currently can be, integrated into Fortnite but that’s why its a goal for Unreal Engine 6 to bring the best of both worlds together in enabling complete integration into both development pipelines.
“And so the place where all of these different threads of development come together is Unreal Engine 6. And it’s a few years away. We don’t have an exact timeframe, but we could be seeing preview versions of it perhaps two to three years from now. And we’re making continuous progress towards it.”
-Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO
Great effort is also being put forth into ensuring the new engine is stocked with assets while also increasing ease of use. Focus on large-scale simulations is another goal for the next engine. From creating content for Fortnite, whether it be an island where a developer can import items and cosmetics, to making standalone projects, UE6 is intended to allow developers an out-of-the-box experience by enabling the full creation and shipping of their products.
“Greater ease of use, meaning it will be easier to hire programmers who are familiar with and experienced with a thing, but also ensure that every game developer has the full deployment capabilities so that they can build a game once and then ship it anywhere.”
-Tim Sweeney, Epic Games CEO