State of Unreal 2025 recap

https://appdevelopermagazine.com/fortnite-returns-to-ios/The State of Unreal 2025 recently concluded, offering the audience a first look at the cutting-edge technologies Epic Games is developing and releasing to help developers and creators build immersive experiences.

All the big news and announcements from the State of Unreal 2025

The show began with a technical demo created in collaboration with CD PROJEKT RED, not The Witcher 4 itself, but a demonstration of the advanced technology driving the new Witcher saga. Epic Games also unveiled updates for Unreal Engine 5.6, including major performance upgrades designed to help teams build large-scale open worlds that run smoothly on current-generation hardware.

The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo

Three years ago, when Unreal Engine 5 launched, CD PROJEKT RED announced a collaboration with Epic Games to bring large open-world support to the engine. At the State of Unreal, they showcased the results.

The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo follows the character Ciri, a professional monster slayer, as she explores the new region of Kovir during a monster contract. The demo offers an early look at several powerful new open-world features from Unreal Engine 5.6, all running on PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second with ray tracing, including the Fast Geometry Streaming Plugin, which enables faster loading of open worlds.

As Ciri moves through the bustling Valdrest market, the demo highlights Unreal Engine 5.6’s ability to handle busy scenes with high-fidelity characters and visual effects like ML Deformer. It also showcases Nanite Foliage, a fast and memory-efficient method to achieve rich foliage density and fidelity, planned for release in Unreal Engine 5.7.

UE 5.6: Open World Magic and Engine-First Animation

Unreal Engine 5.6 is now available for download. One of Epic Games’ key goals for this release was to enable the creation of ultra-high-fidelity, large-scale open worlds running smoothly at 60 frames per second across current-generation consoles, high-end PCs, and modern mobile devices.

Beyond open-world features, Unreal Engine 5.6 introduces significant advancements toward an engine-first animation and rigging workflow, removing the need for DCC round-tripping. Developers can now author MetaHumans directly within the engine, streamlining the creative process. Full details are available in the Unreal Engine 5.6 blog post.

MetaHuman 5.6: Epic’s Most Powerful Digital Human Toolset Yet

With MetaHuman 5.6, the digital human framework has exited Early Access and is fully integrated into Unreal Engine. The updated Unreal Engine EULA allows MetaHuman characters and animations to be used in other engines, such as Unity and Godot, as well as creative software like Maya, Houdini, and Blender, meaning MetaHumans will soon appear in more places.

MetaHuman Creator now offers enhanced fidelity with improved materials, a larger scan database, better models for scan data processing, and new authoring workflows that expand face, body, and clothing options. The update enables real-time animation generation from nearly any camera or audio source via MetaHuman Animator and introduces new plugins for DCC tools, plus integration with the Fab marketplace. More details are available in the latest MetaHuman blog post.

Unreal Editor for Fortnite: New IP, AI-Powered Developer Assistant, and More

Since its launch just over two years ago, Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) has seen players spend over 11.2 billion hours across 260,000 live creator-made islands, resulting in $722 million paid out to third-party creators.

Epic Games continues to expand available tools and IP. Starting June 17, creators can build LEGO® experiences using the LEGO Brick Editor. New IPs are also arriving, including Squid Game on June 27, followed by Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars.

During the latest Fortnite Battle Royale season, GALACTIC BATTLE, Epic introduced a Darth Vader NPC that uses conversational AI to interact with players. The underlying technology will soon be available to creators. Later this year, new tools will allow creators to design AI-powered NPCs using the new Persona Device, enabling characters with personalities and interactive dialogue that can even drive core game mechanics.

Another AI tool, the Epic Developer Assistant, is now in beta on the Epic Developer Community. This assistant helps creators write Verse code for UEFN projects, providing answers, guidance, code snippets, and speeding up island development.

Scene Graph beta launches June 7, offering a foundational layer for UEFN that unifies editor and runtime views. It organizes entities hierarchically in the editor for faster world-building and enables runtime scene modifications via Verse code. Scene Graph is designed to power the future of UEFN.

More details are available in Epic Games’ UEFN blog post.

Across the Epic Ecosystem

RealityScan 2.0 is launching soon, unifying desktop and mobile under the RealityScan name. It includes 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 demo.

Additionally, Fab will become available in the Epic Games launcher this summer, making it easier for developers to access and integrate Fab content. With the recent addition of Loci, Epic will integrate their AI technologies into Fab, adding automated asset tagging, semantic search, and improved IP moderation.

Updates Coming to the Epic Games Store

Since its launch, the Epic Games Store (EGS) has paid over $2.1 billion to developer and publisher partners. On mobile, EGS now features 70 games and has reached 40 million installs, aiming for 70 million by the end of 2025. To further support publishers, Epic Games has updated its revenue share to 0% for the first $1 million in revenue, then 12% thereafter.

Netmarble announced that MONGIL: STAR DIVE will launch exclusively on EGS for PC in the second half of 2025 as part of the Epic First Run program, with a mobile release to follow.

Additional features are on the way: pre-loading arrives in September, and gifting will be available for the holidays, allowing players to gift games on PC and mobile. EGS self-publishing will open to Android and iOS developers in Q3 2025.

Epic Web Shops will launch in July, giving developers an easy platform for setting up in-app purchase shops for PC and mobile games, with competitive revenue terms and added value through Epic Rewards and bonus offers.

Lastly, revamped social features will connect PC and mobile players through game-independent voice chat, text chat, parties, and robust third-party game invites, laying the groundwork for more innovative social features on the store.