Indie Game Development

AAA-caliber tools for indie teams.

The same powerful technology used by AAA studios. An end-to-end ecosystem to create, ship, and operate cross-platform games. The tools and support you need to switch from another engine. And a business model for indies where you don’t pay us until your game makes over $1 million.

Get Unreal

Learn about licensing

The latest news for indie game developers

View all

June 23, 2026

Unreal Engine 5.8 is now available

Build bigger, better, more differentiated worlds in less time; easily populate them with high-fidelity animated characters and custom vegetation; and light and render them at the speed and quality your audiences demand.

News

June 22, 2026

The road to Unreal Engine 6

We have started the road to UE6, where Unreal Engine and UEFN will come together into a single, unified engine. Read more about our vision, transition plans, and timeline.

News

Features for indie game development

Your ambition is the limit—not your team size. From small studios to solo devs, Unreal Engine gives indie teams the power and control to create standout games with the same visual sophistication and fidelity as big-studio titles.

Whether you’re looking for the best indie dev tools and support; a developer-first business model; or a like-minded community, Unreal Engine is built to scale with you.

See all features

Integrated tools for faster creation and iteration

Get more done in less time with in-editor level creation; procedural worldbuilding and vegetation systems; realistic digital human creation; and powerful toolsets for materials, rigging, and animation. They’re all optimized for real-time performance, helping indie teams build rapidly to achieve their vision.

Level Editor

Material Editor

Niagara Editor

Metasounds

Scalable, flexible, cross-platform rendering

Achieve stunning visual results with UE5’s extensive set of rendering features like Nanite and Lumen. Whether you’re going for photorealism or stylized looks, UE’s rendering scales smoothly across platforms from mobile to console, so you get the best possible results for your budget.

Nanite virtualized geometry

Lumen dynamic global illumination

Foliage

Sun & Sky

Scalability

Blueprint visual scripting and full C++ source

UE5 comes with the intuitive Blueprint visual scripting system. That means artists and designers can do more without writing a single line of code, from rapidly prototyping to programming complex gameplay elements. There’s also support for C++, with the full source code available on GitHub.

Blueprint

C++

Source Code

Epic Online Services

Ship faster and scale with confidence using Epic Online Services.

Crossplay, multiplayer, voice chat, anti-cheat, and more—Epic Online Services’ modular, open services give indie devs everything they need to launch, freeing them up to do what they do best: make great games. Ship across any store or platform and scale confidently when your game takes off, all for free.

Learn more

Logos of teams that use Epic Online Services

Indie success stories

Beastro

Explore how a small team crafted “crunchy cozy” UE5-powered adventure Beastro, blending deckbuilding, cooking, and puppet-theater battles.

Timberline Studio

Out of Words

Find out how 40 Danish devs built Out of Words, a co-op platformer built in UE5 that combines stop motion with physics-defying puzzles.

Kong Orange and WiredFly

Mixtape

Discover how an intrepid indie studio crafted a nostalgic, music-infused story of friendship—and why UE5 set them up for success.

Beethoven & Dinosaur

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Step inside the indie development journey of Game of the Year Clair: Obscur Expedition 33.

Sandfall Interactive

Let’s get started.

New to game development or just new to Unreal Engine? We’ve got a collection of learning materials, tutorials, samples, and guides to help you get up and running fast.

Tutorials & training

Browse more tutorials

Get Started with Unreal Engine

This five-part video series takes you on a whistlestop tour of the essentials, from installing UE5 and navigating the interface to packaging your project.

Your First Hour in Unreal Engine

Follow along with this course to learn the high-level basics of UE5 by making a very simple 3D Plaformer game from start to finish.

Unreal Engine Launchpad

Register for an upcoming two-hour introductory training that shows you how professional games are built “The Unreal Way.”

Documentation

Our comprehensive documentation has you covered, whether you’re an artist, a designer, or a programmer, or doing it all on your own.

Unreal Engine for New Users

Understanding the Basics

Working with Content

Blueprints Visual Scripting

See all documentation

Sample projects

Samples are pre-built projects designed to help you quickly learn and get working in Unreal Engine without needing to start from scratch. Download, play, deconstruct, and make them your own.

Get more samples

Stack O Bot

The perfect starting point for new developers, the Stack O Bot sample game is designed to be a great learning resource.

Content Examples

This project’s stations showcase specific UE5 features, including animation, audio, Blueprints, Landscapes, materials, physics, and more.

Niagara Examples Pack

Learn how to create explosions, bullet impacts, sparks, lightning, smoke, and more using the Niagara visual effects system.

Game Animation Sample Project

With over 500 game-ready animations, this project can help you learn best practices or kickstart your own creations.

Licensing

We’ve streamlined our license terms to make your choices clearer. Need something designed just for you? Work with us to create a custom license. Visit our FAQ or reach out to the community if you have any questions.

Under $1 million USD in revenue?

Free

Game developers (royalties apply after $1 million USD gross product revenue)
Individuals and small businesses (with less than $1 million USD in annual gross revenue)
For educators and schools (no revenue limits)

Access to the source code
All platforms & features
Forums and documentation on the Epic Developer Community

Download now View FAQ Licensing Terms

Over $1 million USD in revenue?

Royalty-based

If you're creating a game or application that relies on engine code at runtime and will be licensed to third party end users, you'll pay royalties and won't be required to purchase seats.

Seat-based

If you're using Unreal Engine for commercial purposes, have generated more than $1 million in the past 12 months, and are not creating a game or application that relies on engine code at runtime and will be licensed to third party end users, then a seat license fee is required.

Unreal Engine is just the beginning.

With Unreal Engine, you don’t just get powerful creative tools. You also have access to an entire ecosystem to publish, operate, and collect revenue from your game.

Unreal Editor for Fortnite

Quickly and easily create games using UE5 tools, then publish them to Fortnite for millions of players to enjoy.

Learn more

MetaHuman

Customize and animate highly realistic digital human characters for use in your Unreal Engine projects.

Learn more

RealityScan

Produce high-fidelity 3D models from laser scans and photos that you can use in your real-time scenes.

Find out more

The Fab marketplace

Access a huge library of free and purchasable digital assets—3D models, materials, sound, VFX, digital humans, and more.

Browse now

Epic Developer Community

Need a helping hand? Dive into the EDC and explore tutorials, learning resources, forums, Q&As, and code snippets.

Join us

Epic Online Services

Produce high-fidelity 3D models from laser scans and photos that you can use in your real-time scenes.

Get access

Looking to use the Unreal Engine logo in your project? Access our brand guidelines and logos here.

Need help?

Connect with creators across industries and around the globe. Share everything from shortcuts to snippets to secret shader tricks. When you use Unreal Engine, you’re never alone—our community of hundreds of thousands of developers is here to support you as you bring your idea to life.

Dev Community Forums

Ask and answer questions; show off your work and get inspiration from others.

Unreal Source

Come hang out with us and our developer community on Discord.