The State of Unreal just ended, and the audience got a glimpse of the cutting-edge technologies we’re battle-testing and releasing to help devs and creators build awesome experiences.
The show kicked off with a technical demo we’ve been working on with CD PROJEKT RED — not The Witcher 4 itself, but a showcase of some of the cutting-edge tech powering the new Witcher saga. We also revealed the latest on Unreal Engine 5.6, including major performance upgrades to empower teams to build large-scale open worlds that, just like this tech demo, run smoothly on current-gen hardware.
Get the full scoop on everything coming your way below.
The show kicked off with a technical demo we’ve been working on with CD PROJEKT RED — not The Witcher 4 itself, but a showcase of some of the cutting-edge tech powering the new Witcher saga. We also revealed the latest on Unreal Engine 5.6, including major performance upgrades to empower teams to build large-scale open worlds that, just like this tech demo, run smoothly on current-gen hardware.
Get the full scoop on everything coming your way below.
The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo
When we launched Unreal Engine 5 three years ago, CD PROJEKT RED announced they would collaborate with us to bring large open-world support to the engine. Together at the State of Unreal, we revealed what we’ve been working on.The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo follows witcher Ciri, a professional monster slayer, as she explores the never-before-seen region of Kovir in the midst of a monster contract.
The tech demo provides an early look at a number of 5.6’s powerful new open-world features in action — all running on PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second with raytracing — including the new, faster way to load open worlds via the Fast Geometry Streaming Plugin.
As Ciri explores the bustling market of Valdrest, we see how 5.6 handles busy scenes full of high-fidelity characters and visual effects like ML Deformer. The tech demo also showcases Nanite Foliage — which provides a fast and memory efficient way to achieve gorgeous foliage density and fidelity, slated for release in UE 5.7.
UE 5.6: open world magic and engine-first animation
Unreal Engine 5.6 is now available for download! With this release, one of our key goals was to empower you to build super-high-fidelity, large-scale open worlds that run smoothly at 60 frames per second on current-generation consoles, high-end PCs, and modern mobile devices.Beyond open world features, we’ve made major strides toward a truly engine-first animation and rigging workflow, eliminating the need for DCC round-tripping. We’ve also added the ability for you to author MetaHumans directly within the engine, unlocking a more streamlined and efficient creative process. Read about all the new features in our Unreal Engine 5.6 blog post.
MetaHuman 5.6: our most powerful digital human toolset yet
With MetaHuman 5.6, the digital human framework leaves Early Access and is now fully embedded in Unreal Engine. We’ve updated the Unreal Engine EULA so MetaHuman characters and animation can be used in any engine, such as Unity or Godot, as well as creative software like Maya, Houdini, and Blender so you can expect to see MetaHumans in more places.MetaHuman Creator now has enhanced fidelity thanks to improved materials, a larger scan database and improved models for processing scan data, plus new authoring workflows that will vastly expand the range of available options for faces, bodies, and clothing. The update also provides the ability to generate real-time animation from almost any camera or audio with MetaHuman Animator, and expands the MetaHuman ecosystem with new plugins for DCCs, as well as integration with the Fab marketplace. Check out all the updates in our latest MetaHuman blog post.
Unreal Editor for Fortnite: New IP, AI-powered developer assistant, and more
Since we launched UEFN just over two years ago, players have spent over 11.2 billion hours across 260,000 live creator-made islands, which has resulted in $722M paid out to third-party creators.We continue to expand the tools and the IP that are available to creators, and starting June 17 creators will be able to build LEGO® experiences brick-by-brick using the LEGO Brick Editor. Exciting new IPs are also coming to UEFN with Squid Game slated for June 27, followed by Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars IP.
Speaking of Star Wars, during the latest Season of Fortnite Battle Royale: GALACTIC BATTLE, we introduced a Darth Vader NPC that uses conversational AI to respond when players speak to him. We’re taking what we learned and sharing the underlying technology with the creator community. Later this year we’re releasing new tools for creators to build their own engaging AI-powered NPCs in UEFN. As demonstrated onstage at the State of Unreal, creators will be able to use the new Persona Device to create characters with personalities that players can talk to. And we are taking it a step further so creators can not only drive NPC behavior and dialog, but also drive the core game itself.
Another AI tool that will help creators is the new Epic Developer Assistant, which is now available in beta on the Epic Developer Community. We built this AI-powered assistant to help you write Verse code that you can use in your UEFN projects. It also provides answers, workflow guidance, snippets, and speeds up the Fortnite island development process. Try it out now!
Another AI tool that will help creators is the new Epic Developer Assistant, which is now available in beta on the Epic Developer Community. We built this AI-powered assistant to help you write Verse code that you can use in your UEFN projects. It also provides answers, workflow guidance, snippets, and speeds up the Fortnite island development process. Try it out now!
Finally, Scene Graph beta launches on June 7th. Scene Graph is a new foundational layer for UEFN that unifies editor and runtime views, making all scene elements accessible through Verse. In the editor, it organizes entities hierarchically for fast, flexible world-building—turning repeated items into prefabs for easier management. At runtime, Verse code can modify the scene dynamically, from moving platforms to changing properties on lights. Scene Graph is engineered from the ground up to power the future of UEFN.
Explore all the new updates and improvements coming to UEFN in our blog post.
Explore all the new updates and improvements coming to UEFN in our blog post.
Across the Epic ecosystem
RealityScan 2.0 is launching in the coming weeks, which will unify the desktop and mobile versions under the ‘RealityScan’ name. RealityScan 2.0 is packed with new features like AI-powered masking, smarter image alignment, and support for airborne laser scans. CD PROJEKT RED used RealityScan to capture natural objects in high fidelity for The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo.We also announced that Fab will be available in the Epic Games launcher this summer, making it easier for developers to get Fab content and integrate it into their workflows. Loci joined Epic recently and we’ll be integrating their AI technologies into Fab in the coming months to enable automated asset tagging, semantic search, and improved IP moderation.
Updates coming to the Epic Games Store
The Epic Games Store has now paid developer and publisher partners over $2.1 billion since launch. On mobile, EGS now has a library of 70 awesome games and 40 million installs to date, and it’s on track to hit 70 million by the end of 2025. To give publishers an even better deal, we just changed our initial revenue share to 0% for the first $1 million then 12% thereafter.Netmarble announced that MONGIL: STAR DIVE is coming exclusively to the Epic Games Store on PC in H2 2025 as part of the Epic First Run program. The title will soon be coming to mobile as well, so keep an eye out for it on the mobile version of the Epic Games Store.
Pre-loading is launching in September and gifting is coming in time for the holidays, so you can gift games to your friends on PC and mobile. We’re also opening the Epic Games Store’s self publishing to developers and publishers on Android and iOS in Q3 2025.
Epic Web Shops are coming in July, giving developers an easy way to set up a shop for PC and mobile games’ in-app purchases. Epic Web Shops will enable partners to benefit from industry-leading revenue terms, and pass on added value to players with bonus offers and Epic Rewards.
And last but not least, our revamped social features will connect our PC and mobile players together with game independent voice chat, text chat, and parties, along with robust game invites for third-party games. This will be the building block for several innovative social features on the Store that will follow.
Pre-loading is launching in September and gifting is coming in time for the holidays, so you can gift games to your friends on PC and mobile. We’re also opening the Epic Games Store’s self publishing to developers and publishers on Android and iOS in Q3 2025.
Epic Web Shops are coming in July, giving developers an easy way to set up a shop for PC and mobile games’ in-app purchases. Epic Web Shops will enable partners to benefit from industry-leading revenue terms, and pass on added value to players with bonus offers and Epic Rewards.
And last but not least, our revamped social features will connect our PC and mobile players together with game independent voice chat, text chat, and parties, along with robust game invites for third-party games. This will be the building block for several innovative social features on the Store that will follow.
See you next year
That just about covers everything! It was the first time we’ve hosted the State of Unreal at Unreal Fest, and it was a blast.We can't wait for next year to once again celebrate the community and share the latest epic news. Looking forward to seeing you then.
How to install Unreal Engine
Download the launcher
Before you can install and run Unreal Editor, you’ll need to download and install the Epic Games launcher.
Install Epic Games launcher
Once downloaded and installed, open the launcher and create or log in to your Epic Games account.
Get support, or restart your Epic Games launcher download in Step 1.
Install Unreal Engine
Once logged in, navigate to the Unreal Engine tab and click the Install button to download the most recent version.
Watch how to install