Epic Games delivered its 2025 edition of the State of Unreal during a keynote presentation by CEO Tim Sweeney at Unreal Fest in Orlando, Florida. This year’s event offered a comprehensive look at the company’s ongoing work in game engine development, user-generated content, and creator tools. Notably, Epic chose to debut its State of Unreal outside its traditional slot at the Game Developers Conference, positioning the reveal near Disneyworld instead.

Epic Games Unveils 2025 State of Unreal

Epic Games State of Unreal

Epic Games unveiled its annual State of Unreal presentation for 2025 during Unreal Fest in Orlando, Florida, offering a detailed look at its latest technologies and ecosystem developments. Departing from its usual March showcase at the Game Developers Conference, this year’s event featured a keynote from CEO Tim Sweeney and focused on major updates to Unreal Engine 5.6, enhancements to the MetaHuman platform, new tools within Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), and ongoing growth of the Epic Games Store. The event also included a high-profile collaboration with CD Projekt Red, presenting a tech demo for The Witcher 4 that highlighted the engine’s new capabilities in open-world design and real-time performance.

CD Projekt Red Showcases The Witcher 4

One of the event's main highlights was a tech demonstration by CD Projekt Red, featuring early development assets from The Witcher 4. While not a full reveal of the upcoming game, the presentation showcased technology built with Unreal Engine 5.6. The demo followed the character Ciri in a new region of the Witcher universe, offering a glimpse of several new engine features in action.

Among the tools highlighted were the Fast Geometry Streaming Plugin for loading expansive worlds efficiently and Nanite Foliage, which improves visual fidelity and performance in environments with dense vegetation. The demo ran on PlayStation 5 at 60 frames per second with ray tracing enabled, indicating the engine's performance improvements on current-generation hardware.

Epic Games Unveils 2025 State of Unreal

Unreal Engine 5.6 Focuses on Open Worlds

Unreal Engine 5.6 is now publicly available, and Epic emphasized its goal of supporting the development of high-fidelity open-world (metaverse) games across multiple platforms. The release includes engine-first animation and rigging tools, removing the need for external digital content creation (DCC) software for many workflows. The update allows developers to create and edit MetaHuman characters directly within the engine, streamlining the creation of realistic digital humans and reducing development complexity.

MetaHuman 5.6 Leaves Early Access

With the release of MetaHuman 5.6, Epic officially transitions the platform out of Early Access and integrates it fully into Unreal Engine. The update enhances fidelity through improved materials and a larger scan database. It also expands creative flexibility with new tools for editing faces, bodies, and clothing. MetaHuman Animator now supports real-time animation generation using almost any camera or audio input. Additionally, Epic updated its license agreement to allow MetaHuman characters and animations to be used in other engines, including Unity and Godot, as well as creative tools such as Blender and Maya. The expansion of the MetaHuman ecosystem is further supported by new plugins and integration with Epic’s Fab asset marketplace.

Epic Games Unveils 2025 State of Unreal

Unreal Editor for Fortnite Expands Creator Tools

Epic reported that Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) has now paid out $722 million to third-party creators since its launch. More than 260,000 live islands have been published by creators, with over 11.2 billion hours played across these experiences. Upcoming updates to UEFN include new intellectual property content such as Squid Game, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Star Wars, all scheduled to appear throughout June 2025. Starting June 17, creators will also be able to build LEGO-themed content using the new LEGO Brick Editor.

Epic is also investing in artificial intelligence within UEFN. During the keynote, the company showcased its new Persona Device, which enables the creation of AI-powered non-playable characters (NPCs) with personalized behavior and dialogue. Epic plans to release this tool later in the year, giving creators the ability to use AI-driven characters that can also impact core gameplay systems. In addition, the new Epic Developer Assistant, currently in beta, offers AI-based support for writing Verse code, helping developers with syntax, workflow guidance, and code snippets to streamline development.

On June 7, Epic will launch the Scene Graph beta, a new foundational system that unifies the editor and runtime environments. It organizes game elements hierarchically and allows for more dynamic interaction with game objects through Verse scripting. This system is designed to improve world-building efficiency and flexibility within UEFN.

Epic Games Unveils 2025 State of Unreal

Updates to RealityScan and Fab Marketplace

RealityScan 2.0 is also launching soon, combining mobile and desktop versions into a single platform. The updated tool offers features such as AI-powered masking, enhanced image alignment, and support for aerial laser scans. CD Projekt Red utilized RealityScan to capture natural elements used in The Witcher 4 tech demo, demonstrating its role in achieving high visual fidelity.

Epic’s Fab asset marketplace will become accessible via the Epic Games launcher this summer. The marketplace will include automated asset tagging, semantic search, and IP moderation powered by Loci, an AI company recently acquired by Epic.

Epic Games Unveils 2025 State of Unreal

Epic Games Store Reports Growth

The Epic Games Store has now distributed more than $2.1 billion to developers and publishers. On mobile, the store has reached 40 million installs and is projected to hit 70 million by the end of 2025. Epic recently changed its revenue share policy, allowing developers to earn 100% of revenue on their first $1 million in sales, followed by a 12% share thereafter. Netmarble's Mongil: Star Dive will debut exclusively on PC through the Epic Games Store in October 2025 as part of the Epic First Run program. A mobile version of the game is also planned.

New features coming to the store include pre-loading in September and gifting options during the holiday season. Epic is also opening up its store for self-publishing on Android and iOS platforms in the third quarter of 2025. In July, Epic Web Shops will launch, allowing developers to sell in-app purchases for both PC and mobile games while taking advantage of competitive revenue terms and promotional tools like Epic Rewards.

Epic is also rolling out enhanced social features that support cross-platform communication through voice chat, text messaging, and party systems. These improvements will serve as the foundation for future social capabilities across the Epic ecosystem.

A Broad Vision for the Future

With the 2025 State of Unreal, Epic Games has laid out a clear vision for the future of its platforms and tools. The company continues to invest in high-performance technology, AI integration, and creator ecosystems while expanding its support for developers through improved revenue sharing, publishing tools, and community features. As Unreal Engine, MetaHuman, UEFN, and the Epic Games Store evolve, Epic maintains its focus on enabling more creators to build and distribute interactive content across a growing range of platforms.