Epic has released a new preview version of Unreal Engine 5.6. The update is primarily intended to address performance issues.
Epic Games has released a preview of Unreal Engine 5.6 for developers. It is intended to deliver a performance boost for open worlds and the biggest animation update to date. More information and insights may be available at Unreal Fest in a few weeks.
New version to improve open worlds
What’s included: Epic has presented the Unreal Engine 5.6 preview itself in a short blog post and briefly outlined the most important new features:
- Huge, lifelike open worlds with maximum performance and consistent 60hz frame rates
- The biggest and most powerful update for animation creation yet
- MetaHuman Creator is now available in-engine, including MetaHuman body blending and sculpting, improved visual fidelity, and new real-time workflows for MetaHuman Animator
- Faster creation with Content Browser 2.0 and the new viewport toolbar layout
- The ability to create expansive, realistic worlds faster than ever before with powerful procedural workflows
From a player’s perspective, the promised performance gains are particularly interesting. Unreal Engine 5 games often look impressive, but they often place such heavy demands on the technology that performance suffers and the image becomes unstable.
If Epic actually manages to optimize the engine so that a stable 60 fps can be achieved on at least reasonably up-to-date devices, that would be a big step in the right direction.
The experience and insights gained from Fortnite could prove helpful here. The popular shooter was one of the first Unreal Engine 5 titles and is designed to be playable on as many devices as possible.
Preview versions like these are still in the middle of development and are only intended to give a glimpse of what to expect from the respective version. The quality may therefore vary slightly.
Epic plans to unveil the final Unreal Engine 5.6 on June 3, 2025, at a State of Unreal event during Unreal Fest 2025 in Orlando. A release date for the new version may also be announced then.
