July 17, 2019

Experimental, Early Access, and Beta features in Unreal Engine

News

Games

Features

In the past, Epic Games has often introduced new Unreal Engine features as “Experimental” or “Early Access.” Such features are typically not quite ready to be part of a shipping project, but we like to make these features available to you for experimentation and feedback.

In a blog post from November 2018, we discussed the differences between these descriptions with regard to features. Going forward, Epic Games is retiring the “Early Access” designation in favor of the term “Beta.” We are making this change after listening to your feedback on the labeling of these features, to help avoid confusion about their meanings.

Here are the new definitions, going forward:

BETA:

Features available in Beta (previously called “Early Access”) give you the opportunity to learn how they work, plan your pipeline, and create test content. You should use caution when using these features in production, as we are still working to get to shipping-quality performance, stability, and platform support. We support backward compatibility for assets, and the APIs for these features are stable. When using Beta features, we recommend making a copy of your project and saving work often.

EXPERIMENTAL:

Features are sometimes made available in an “Experimental” state so you can try them out, provide feedback, and see what we are planning. We do not recommend shipping projects with Experimental features. Please keep in mind that we do not guarantee backward compatibility for assets created at the experimental stage, the APIs for these features are subject to change, and we may remove entire Experimental features or specific functionality at our discretion.

We are working to standardize these terms throughout our website and documentation, and in Unreal Engine products, projects, and samples. We appreciate your patience as we work through these updates.