CEO Tim Sweeney gave the keynote address at the Unbelievable Fest in Orlando, Florida, introducing the State of Unreal.

Epic Games unveiled a magnificent technology demonstration with CD Projekt Red, the creator of the Witcher collection, as it showed off the tech behind The Witcher 4 on False Engine 5.6. Although our independent author Giancarlo Valdes is stationed in Orlando, this article will provide a brief overview of the occasion. He’ll send letters with more information and insider information. And sure, Epic is doing this show in the darkness of Disneyworld, as it skipped its standard Status of Unreal at the Game Developers Conference in March.

Additionally, Epic demonstrated Unreal Editor for Fortnite ( UEFN), which is a haven for user-generated content, and MetaHuman, a platform for creating human avatars with realistic faces. To date, UEFN has received$ 72 million in revenue from third-party authors over the past few years. And the Epic Games Store has today paid creator and publisher lovers over$ 2.1 billion since release.

The crowd had a chance to see the cutting-edge systems that Epic Games is testing and releasing to support developers and creators create fantastic experiences as The State of Unreal really came to an end.

A professional demo from CD Projekt Red opened the show by showcasing some of the technology used in the fresh Witcher saga, no The Witcher 4. Epic also revealed the latest on Unreal Engine 5.6, including key efficiency upgrades to motivate teams to develop large-scale available worlds that, just like this tech demo, run effortlessly on current-gen hardware.

Tech video for The Witcher 4 False Engine 5

When Epic launched Unreal Engine 5 three years ago, CD Projekt Red said it would cooperate with Epic to take big open-world aid to the motor. They have now revealed what they’ve been working on at the State of Unreal.

Ciri, a professional monster slayer, follows her as she explores the never-before-seen Kovir region while negotiating 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.

Epic notices how 5.5.6 handles busy scenes with high-fidelity characters and visual effects like ML Deformer as Ciri explores Valdrest’s bustling market. Nanite Foliage, which is scheduled to be released in UE 5.7, is also featured in the tech demo. It provides a quick and memory-efficient method for achieving gorgeous foliage density and fidelity.

UE 5.6: open world magic and engine-first animation

Unreal Engine 5.6 is now accessible for download! With this release, one of the key goals was to empower devs 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.

Epic made significant progress toward an entirely engine-first animation and rigging workflow, eliminating DCC round-tripping, despite open world features. Additionally, Epic made it possible for devs to write MetaHumans directly within the engine, enabling a more organized and effective creative process.

With MetaHuman 5.6, the digital human framework leaves Early Access and is now fully embedded in Unreal Engine. You can now expect to see MetaHuman characters and animation in more places thanks to Epic’s updated Unreal Engine EULA, which allows for use of any engines, such as Unity or Godot, as well as creative software like Maya, Houdini, and Blender.

Improved materials, a larger scan database, and improved models for processing scan data, as well as new authoring workflows that will significantly expand the range of options for faces, bodies, and clothing, have now increased fidelity in MetaHuman Creator.

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.

Fortnite’s Unreal Editor: New IP, AI-enabled developer assistant

Players have spent more than 11.2 billion hours playing UEFN since Epic launched it just over two years ago.
across 260, 000 live creator-made islands, which has resulted in$ 722 million paid out to third-party
creators.

Starting on June 17, creators will be able to create LEGO experiences brick-by-brick using the LEGO Brick Editor as Epic continues to expand the tools and IP that are available to creators.

Squid Game, Squid Game, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Star Wars are all scheduled for UEFN, followed by exciting new IPs like Star Wars and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Speaking of Star Wars, during the latest Season of Fortnite Battle Royale: Galactic Battle, Epic introduced a Darth Vader NPC that uses conversational AI to respond when players speak to him. What it learned is being used by Epic to impart the technology’s principles to the creator community.

Later this year, the company will release new tools for creators to create 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. Additionally, Epic is expanding its scope so creators can drive core game components as well as NPC behavior and dialog.

The new Epic Developer Assistant, which is currently in beta on the Epic Developer Community, is another AI tool that will assist creators. Epic built this AI-powered assistant to help you write Verse code that devs can use in UEFN projects. Additionally, it speeds up the Fortnite island development process by providing answers, workflow guidance, snippets, and snippets.

Finally, on June 7, Scene Graph beta will be available. Scene Graph is a new foundational layer for UEFN that unifies editor and runtime views, making all scene elements accessible through Verse. For quick, flexible world-building, it organized entities in the editor, turning repeated items into prefabs for easier management. Verse code can dynamically modify the scene at runtime, from changing lighting properties to moving platforms. Scene Graph is engineered from the ground up to power the future of UEFN.

In a blog post, developers can learn about all the new additions and improvements coming to UEFN. RealityScan 2.0, which unifies the desktop and mobile versions under the” RealityScan” name, will be available in the Epic ecosystem in the upcoming weeks. RealityScan 2.0 is packed with new features like AI-powered masking, smarter image alignment, and support for airborne laser scans. For the The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo, CD Projekt Red used RealityScan to capture high-fidelity natural objects.

Additionally, Epic made it known that Fab will be accessible in the Epic Games launcher this summer, making it simpler for developers to access and use Fab content. Loci joined Epic recently and Epic will integrate its 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. EGS currently has 40 million installs and a library of 70 awesome mobile games, and it’s on track to reach that number by the year 2025. Epic simply changed its initial revenue share to 0 % for the first$ 1 million and 12 % thereafter to offer publishers an even better deal.

Netmarble announced that Mongil: Star Dive is coming exclusively to the Epic Games Store on PC in October 2025 as part of the Epic First Run program. Keep an eye out for the title on the mobile version of the Epic Games Store because it will soon be available for both mobile and desktop.

Devs can gift games to friends on PC and mobile devices with pre-loading starting in September and gifting starting in time for the holidays. Epic is 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, making it simple for developers to create in-app stores for PC and mobile games. Partner benefiting from industry-leading revenue terms and providing partners with bonus offers and Epic Rewards will be able to receive additional value.

And last but not least, Epic’s revamped social features will connect its 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 serve as the foundation for a number of creative social features to be added to the Store in the future.