Most game developers have switched to Unreal Engine 5, which is powering some of the biggest games available now or currently in development at studios worldwide. In a new interview with Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney at The Verge, we learn that the studio is already working on Unreal Engine 6, which will be much more than a game engine.
Disney and Epic Games are teaming up to create a persistent universe and metaverse that “fully interoperates” with Fortnite.
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Sweeney says that the current plan for the next version of Unreal Engine is to combine the developer tools and platform that game studios and teams are using today with Fortnite’s easy-to-use Unreal Editor. The reason can be summed up using a single word, which you probably haven’t heard in a while – the ‘metaverse.’
“The real power will come when we bring these two worlds together so we have the entire power of our high-end game engine merged with the ease of use that we put together in [Unreal Editor for Fortnite],” Sweeney says. “That’s going to take several years. And when that process is complete, that will be Unreal Engine 6.”
Yes, Epic has big plans for creating a giant metaverse platform running on Unreal Engine 6, with powerful tools giving users and publishers or companies the ability to shape and create an interactive and interconnected universe. Epic is already working with Disney to create a “persistent universe,” which looks like an early testbed or version of this metaverse. Tim Sweeney says this digital Disney ecosystem “fully interoperates with the Fortnite ecosystem.”
Epic positioned Fortnite as a game-making tool long before it became the go-to Battle Royale for millions of gamers. With Unreal Engine 6, there are plans to make assets “work in different contexts,” meaning that a 3D character or object from Epic’s upcoming Fab marketplace could be optimized to work with Unreal Engine, Unity, Roblox, and Minecraft.
Of course, Unreal Engine 6 will still be a traditional game engine, where a developer like CD Projekt Red could develop and release a standalone, metaverse-free game like The Witcher 4 or the next Cyberpunk. It’ll be interesting to see how this metaverse stuff plays out. The good news is that Tim Sweeney and Epic aren’t in a bubble. He and his team are acutely aware of the general lack of interest in the metaverse. “It’s like there’s metaverse weather,” Sweeney says. “Some days it’s good, some days it’s bad. Depends on who’s doing the talking about it.”