Today, State of Unreal 2026 took place in Chicago, focusing on practical tools, workflows, and the future of Unreal Engine.
Epic Games outlined a roadmap for the future of its game development, revealing that Unreal Engine 6 is now in development. The next-generation engine aims to bridge the gap between traditional AAA game production and live-service, especially for titles like Fortnite.
The expansion of Verse, Epic’s gameplay programming language, is set to serve as an important part of Unreal Engine 6’s future. The company described its long-term goal as delivering a “transactional C++” model that simplifies large-scale development while supporting persistent online worlds.
Epic also emphasized a commitment to open standards. They will allow content, code, and even in-game economies to move more seamlessly across platforms and products.
To accelerate development workflows, Epic showcased new pipeline initiatives. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrates AI assistants, such as Claude and Gemini, into the creative process to streamline technical tasks, asset creation, and production workflows.
It was stressed that Unreal Engine 5 remains its primary focus for developers today, despite plans to expand in the future. Epic confirmed an Early Access target for Unreal Engine 6 at the end of 2027.
Alongside these announcements, Epic released Unreal Engine 5.8, a major update focused on performance, workflow improvements, and feature maturity.
Lumen’s new lightweight dynamic global illumination mode is a major upgrade, as it can now run at 60 frames per second on Nintendo Switch 2 hardware and PCs. The update expands worldbuilding tools and introduces more intuitive character and animation workflows.
Several features are already in the production-ready stage, including MegaLights, Audio Insights, Dataflow for Chaos Cloth, Live Link Hub, Iris, and the Movie Render Graph. Mesh Terrain was also unveiled as an experimental feature, letting developers create highly detailed 3D landscapes without the limitations of traditional heightfield systems.
To no one’s surprise, Epic Games’ bell cow, Fortnite, got plenty of announcements, including more than 30 gaming collaborations planned for 2026. Upcoming crossovers include:
- Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds (Sonic the Hedgehog skin Fortnite debut)
- Phantom Blade Zero-themed cosmetics arriving in October
- Control’s Faden siblings in September
- Future content tied to Vampire Survivors
Fortnite has paid out over $1 billion to developers since the launch of UEFN. This year, Epic plans to cut iteration times by an average of 40% and continue laying the groundwork for UEFN’s convergence with UE6.
The store’s overall success was a considerable focus of the livestream. The Epic Games Store now features more than 6,000 games from over 3,000 partners. In 2025, player spending on third-party PC games grew 57%, reaching an all-time record of $400 million.
Plenty of changes have been announced in recent months for the Store, including UI updates and more options for developers. Epic is completely overhauling the store’s architecture to enhance usability, modernize the interface, and improve social and community features.
Studios will have more options and a reason to focus on compatibility, pipeline changes, and if these updates lower production overhead in practice. Other developer incentives were also highlighted, such as a 100% revenue share on the first million sales, and new initiatives to integrate the storefront directly with the Fortnite ecosystem.
Disney even highlighted the growing success of its Fortnite partnership. According to the company, Star Wars Islands attracted more than eight million players within 72 hours of launch. Disney further revealed that The Simpsons will join Epic’s Unreal Engine IP Partner Program later this year.
Gears of War: The Coalition also took center stage during the event with an impressive tech demo. The showcase featured an exclusive look at how they are pushing cinematic fidelity and interactive boundaries natively using the latest Unreal Engine systems.
Unreal Fest Chicago is set to run from June 16 to June 18, 2026. For more information from the event, be sure to check back with Simulation Daily for updates. You can also check out the official livestream for today’s event right down below:
