[0:00] Michael with IGN here at Unreal Fest
[0:01] 2026 and we just got out of the state of
[0:03] Unreal keynote. We learned so much about
[0:05] the future of the Unreal Engine and it's
[0:07] going to affect a lot of the games we
[0:08] play, so you're going to want to stick
[0:09] around. At the top of everyone's mind,
[0:11] it's Unreal Engine 6, but that's not
[0:13] coming anytime soon. Early access for
[0:15] UE6 is going to start at the end of 2027
[0:17] and it's going to be [music] about 12 to
[0:19] 14 months until it goes into full
[0:21] production. So, if you think it's going
[0:22] to affect any of the games that are
[0:23] coming out anytime soon, that's not
[0:25] happening. We also didn't get to see it
[0:27] in action at all other than the Rocket
[0:29] League UE6 teaser that we saw before.
[0:31] So, the state of Unreal was more geared
[0:33] towards how it affects game development.
[0:34] [music]
[0:35] So, yes, games built on UE6 are going to
[0:37] look shinier, they are going to look
[0:38] better, but that's not really the
[0:40] priority of UE6. [music] Epic was
[0:41] stressing that UE6 is about scalability,
[0:44] making games bigger without adding
[0:46] workloads to game developers. So, for
[0:48] example [music]
[0:49] Fortnite has 100 players dropping onto
[0:51] an island. Ostensibly, with UE6, you
[0:54] could do that [music] at a larger scale
[0:56] with maybe 1,000 players or even more.
[0:58] So, what this could mean is that you'll
[1:00] get bigger games without adding [music]
[1:01] development time or increasing
[1:03] development costs. Another big part that
[1:05] was stressed about UE6 [music] was
[1:06] portability of assets. So, games built
[1:08] on UE across the board can share assets,
[1:11] >> [music]
[1:11] >> tools, coding, and this is kind of being
[1:14] tested with Fortnite. And part of this
[1:16] is possible because UE6 is merging what
[1:18] you see in UE5 and UEFN. UEFN being the
[1:21] tools that you see to make
[1:22] user-generated content within [music]
[1:24] Fortnite. So, UE6 is merging both of
[1:26] these frameworks and there's going to be
[1:28] a lot of cross-pollination between
[1:30] assets. So, things that are made in
[1:32] Fortnite or UEFN can be ported over to
[1:35] games made [music] in UE6 and vice
[1:37] versa. And there's a lot of information
[1:38] about the coding language Verse, which
[1:40] is going to also be native to UE6 and
[1:42] other versions of UE5 moving forward.
[1:45] Again, that's just top-level stuff
[1:46] because UE6 is a ways out, but if you
[1:49] want to know where UE6 is going, it's
[1:51] probably best to pay attention to what's
[1:52] happening with UE5.8.
[1:56] Now, folks who are worried about
[1:57] performance with Unreal Engine 5, this
[1:59] is where you're going to want to pay
[2:00] attention. I want to talk about
[2:02] compiling shaders. Epic themselves know
[2:05] how much we hate compiling shaders and
[2:07] waiting for that thing to load. So, it's
[2:09] no secret that that is a pain point for
[2:11] a lot of games built on Unreal Engine.
[2:13] And so, one of the points they made is
[2:15] that they've done a 68% reduction in
[2:17] shader count in Fortnite. So, they could
[2:19] do that for Fortnite, you can imagine
[2:21] that that will apply to other games
[2:22] built on UE5. And part of the 5.8 update
[2:25] is also improved PSO pre-caching. It's
[2:27] going to [music] have seamless fallback
[2:29] rendering as well, so there's going to
[2:30] be less hitching. Now, I know you
[2:32] probably don't know what PSO pre-caching
[2:34] means, but if you are having performance
[2:36] problems or if you're having those
[2:37] annoying hitches as you're playing games
[2:39] that are built on UE, this is kind of a
[2:41] solution to solve that problem. Related
[2:44] to this, I think it was interesting that
[2:45] we got a Gears of War E-Day demo that
[2:48] highlighted the lighting model that's
[2:49] being used in that game. So, with the
[2:51] Lumen lighting technology that's built
[2:53] into Unreal Engine, uh
[2:54] >> [music]
[2:54] >> we saw the same scenes that were shown
[2:56] during the Xbox showcase for Gears
[2:58] E-Day, but with a focus on Lumen and the
[3:00] lighting model that's pulling from
[3:01] thousands of light sources. That's all
[3:03] being ray traced while maintaining 60
[3:05] FPS on Xbox Series X and S, and a lot of
[3:07] the destruction model is also reacting
[3:09] to all of that in real time while
[3:11] maintaining performance. And to the
[3:12] point of performance, Lumen is also
[3:14] improving scalability, so you could have
[3:16] a similar lighting model but on a
[3:18] smaller scale for mobile and SWITCH 2
[3:21] GAMES.
[3:25] SO, THOSE ARE THE broader points about
[3:26] performance with Unreal Engine, but
[3:28] there was also a showcasing of how
[3:30] flexible the engine has become. So,
[3:32] Teamfight Tactics from Riot [music]
[3:33] Games is being migrated over to Unreal
[3:35] Engine, and you kind of wouldn't think
[3:37] of it as a game that needs to be built
[3:38] on [music] UE. And all the way on the
[3:40] other side of spectrum, we got to see a
[3:41] lot from No Law, which is a new game
[3:43] from Neon Giant. Previously, they made
[3:45] the game called The Ascent, but No Law
[3:47] is a first-person [music] shooter that
[3:49] is a lot more dense and a lot more
[3:50] detailed at the ground level.
[3:55] The point that they were trying to make
[3:56] is that the tools in Unreal Engine
[3:58] allows a smaller team to make a game
[4:00] [music] with this much detail and with
[4:01] that much density. Now, there's a bigger
[4:03] elephant in the room with UE5.8 and it
[4:05] is the advancement of AI tools in the
[4:07] engine. There's a new MCP plugin that is
[4:10] part of 5.8 and [music] this
[4:12] communicates with any of the LLMs that
[4:14] you may want to use. We saw a live
[4:15] demonstration using cloud coding and
[4:18] [music] how big environments can be
[4:20] generated using these LLMs and the new
[4:23] 5.8 tools. So, for [music] example, we
[4:25] saw a city being built and you can give
[4:27] instructions to the LLM within [music]
[4:30] the tool set that you have with UE5.8.
[4:33] So, the idea is that this is supposed to
[4:35] cut down on the more busy work [music]
[4:36] and the manual labor of building virtual
[4:39] worlds. You can give an outline, you can
[4:41] draw the boundaries, and then it will
[4:43] create a world for you, but all of it is
[4:45] supposed to be editable as the creators
[4:47] themselves. So, you can go to the ground
[4:49] level of the world that was generated
[4:51] and then [music] tool it to whichever
[4:52] way you see fit. So, they're stressing
[4:54] the idea that creative control is still
[4:56] in the hands of the developers and that
[4:58] AI isn't building the worlds on its own.
[5:00] However, there are ongoing questions
[5:02] about the use of AI in a lot of creative
[5:04] spaces, especially [music]
[5:05] the cost that it takes to run these
[5:07] LLMs. So, it's going to be an ongoing
[5:09] conversation and I think the important
[5:11] part is that you need to pay attention
[5:13] to [music] how content is created.
[5:14] >> It's Jurassic Park. Uh, here's Dad
[5:17] having a meeting with my teacher, Mrs.
[5:19] Krabappel.
[5:19] >> So, everybody knows about all the
[5:21] collaborations in Fortnite and all the
[5:22] different IP that have been mashed into
[5:24] the game. Well, UEFN is also an
[5:27] extension of that where a lot of these
[5:28] IP assets are usable for a lot of the
[5:31] creations that you [music] see on the
[5:32] user side. Especially when it comes to
[5:34] Star Wars, there were a lot of games
[5:36] that got a lot of engagement [music] and
[5:37] you can kind of think of it as a
[5:39] platform for user-created content. It's
[5:42] not dissimilar from Roblox, but there is
[5:43] a lot more control that Epic has and
[5:46] there are a lot more sophisticated tools
[5:48] to build out these sorts of experiences.
[5:50] The big conclusion with this is [music]
[5:51] The Simpsons. And if you remember from a
[5:53] couple months back, The Simpsons had a
[5:55] big collaboration in Fortnite. [music]
[5:56] Springfield was the map in Fortnite. But
[5:59] all those assets are now part of UEFN
[6:01] ecosystem. [music]
[6:02] So, people who want to create content
[6:03] with The Simpsons assets can do that
[6:05] now. So, like a lot of the Star Wars
[6:07] content you saw on UEFN, that will also
[6:10] apply to The Simpsons [music] coming
[6:11] soon because the toolkit will be
[6:12] available later this year. There's a
[6:14] broader conversation to be had about the
[6:15] democratization of IP, but also the
[6:18] homogenization of a lot of these assets
[6:20] and a lot of the experiences that you
[6:21] have [music] mashing all these different
[6:23] IP together. But, it is part of the
[6:25] larger Fortnite ecosystem, [music] and
[6:27] it is part of Unreal Engine's ecosystem.
[6:30] So, those are some of the big ideas
[6:31] coming out of Unreal Fest and the State
[6:33] of Unreal keynote speech. [music] This
[6:34] is going to affect a lot of the games we
[6:36] play. Claire Obscure was built on Unreal
[6:37] Engine. The Final Fantasy VII Remake
[6:39] series is built on Unreal Engine as
[6:41] well. So, if you're interested [music]
[6:42] in the future of games, you should be
[6:43] paying attention to this stuff. And for
[6:45] all the coverage of Unreal Engine and so
[6:47] much more in the world of games, stick
[6:48] with IGN.