Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine is the engine Epic Games built for its 1998 shooter Unreal and has licensed to other studios ever since. Tim Sweeney began it in 1995. Version 5 launched in 2022, and Epic announced Unreal Engine 6 in May 2026.
History
Unreal Engine 2 (2002) moved to hardware rendering and added the PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube. Unreal Engine 3 (2006) made DirectX 9 the baseline and supported multithreading; Gears of War, Mass Effect and Batman: Arkham Asylum ran on it. At GDC 2012 Epic said it would drop its UnrealScript language from Unreal Engine 4 in favour of C++. UE4 launched in 2014 with physically based materials and Blueprints visual scripting, and it was the first version anyone could download free, paying a royalty on game revenue.
Unreal Engine 5, revealed in May 2020 and released in April 2022, introduced the Nanite geometry system and Lumen lighting. Epic announced Unreal Engine 6 on 24 May 2026; Rocket League is the first game announced to move to it.
Studios that retired their own engines have moved to Unreal: CD Projekt Red chose Unreal Engine 5 over REDengine in 2022, and Konami’s football series left the Fox Engine for Unreal.
Games made with Unreal Engine
19 games, oldest first. Each game links to the article that names its engine.
| Game | Year | Developer | Engine version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unreal | 1998 | Epic Games, Digital Extremes | Unreal Engine 1 |
| Unreal Tournament | 1999 | Epic Games, Digital Extremes | Unreal Engine 1 |
| America’s Army | 2002 | United States Army | Unreal Engine 2, Unreal Engine 3 (v4.0) |
| Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell | 2002 | Ubi Soft Montreal | Unreal Engine 2 |
| Unreal Tournament 2004 | 2004 | Epic Games, Digital Extremes | Unreal Engine 2 |
| Gears of War | 2006 | Epic Games | Unreal Engine 3 |
| Mass Effect | 2007 | BioWare | Unreal Engine 3 |
| Batman: Arkham Asylum | 2009 | Rocksteady Studios | Unreal Engine 3 |
| Borderlands | 2009 | Gearbox Software | Unreal Engine 3 |
| Rocket League | 2015 | Psyonix | Unreal Engine 3 |
| Fortnite Battle Royale | 2017 | Epic Games | Unreal Engine 4 at launch; Unreal Engine 5 since Chapter 3 (Dec 2021) |
| Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice | 2017 | Ninja Theory | Unreal Engine 4 |
| Gears 5 | 2019 | The Coalition | Unreal Engine 4 |
| Final Fantasy VII Remake | 2020 | Square Enix Business Division 1 | Unreal Engine 4 |
| Hogwarts Legacy | 2023 | Avalanche Software | Unreal Engine 4 |
| Black Myth: Wukong | 2024 | Game Science | Unreal Engine 5 |
| Silent Hill 2 (2024) | 2024 | Bloober Team | Unreal Engine 5 |
| Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl | 2024 | GSC Game World | Unreal Engine 5 |
| Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | 2025 | Sandfall Interactive | Unreal Engine 5 |
At a glance
- Developer
- Epic Games
- First game
- Unreal (1998)
- Current version
- Unreal Engine 5 (2022)
- Next
- Unreal Engine 6, announced May 2026
- Licence
- Source available; royalty of 5% on revenue over US$1 million
- Status
- Active
Sources
Checked .
- Unreal Engine — Wikipedia
- Unreal Engine 5.8 Release Notes — Epic Games
Image credits
- Unreal Engine logo — Epic Games. Public domain. Cropped to the symbol, placed on a white square and converted to WebP
