Epic Games Confirms Unreal Engine 6 Comes With Claude, Gemini Integration; Releases UE 5.8 Update

Epic Games detailed the next iteration of its Unreal Engine and confirmed a major update for Unreal Engine 5 at the Unreal Fest conference on Wednesday. The Fortnite maker said that Unreal Engine 6, which was teased at Rocket League Championship Series last month, would integrate popular generative AI models like Claude and Gemini to help developers build game content faster and reduce "tedious work."

The announcements came at the State of the Unreal keynote at Unreal Fest on Wednesday, where Epic formally unveiled Unreal Engine 6, detailing its key features and. The company said that UE6 would unify UE5 and Unreal Editor for Fortnite into a single product, allowing developers to build and deploy to traditional platforms, Fortnite, or their own live and potentially multi-product ecosystems.

Epic detailed three key initiatives of Unreal Engine 6 at the keynote, most notable of which was the integration of Large Language Models (LLMs) like Claude, Gemini, and others. The AI models in UE6 will help developers focus on essential creative and technical tasks instead of time-consuming manual tasks, Epic said.

The company said that the generative AI models will play a “central role” in helping developers build content faster while maintaining creative control and reducing the “tedious work.”

Additionally, UE6 will include a new gameplay framework known as Scene Graph, built on Verse, the company's next-generation programming model.

Finally, UE6 will allow content and code to be portable across games and engines. This interoperability means that assets such as Fortnite cosmetics can be shared between games built on the engine.

“UE6 will keep doing the things you want Unreal Engine to do. Rendering will keep getting better. Cook times will come down. Iteration loops will get tighter. Mobile is increasingly capable,” Epic said in a blog post.

Unreal Engine 6 is targeting Early Access release at the end of 2027, with the full release of UE6 coming 12-18 months later.

Unreal Engine 5.8 Now Available

At the State of Epic event, Epic Games also confirmed the release of Unreal Engine 5.8 major update, which brings a performance boost, faster in-engine character and animation creation tools, and a range of improvements that streamline game development workflows. 

The latest update to the engine introduces Mesh Terrain, a new 3D-mesh-based system for designing larger, more complex terrains, Epic said. Other new features in Unreal Engine 5.8 include improved virtual production, high-fidelity full-body performance capture, accelerated content creation with integrated LLM workflows, and more.

Additionally, real-time rendering and lighting enhancements mean that games that rely on global illumination can run on Nintendo Switch 2 at 60 fps, Epic said. This means we're likely to see better performance from games built on Unreal Engine on the Switch 2.

UE 5.8 is the last planned major Unreal Engine 5 release as Epic moves to ramp up work on UE6, the company confirmed. “We will continue to support UE5 for bug fixes and regressions and may add another official release if circumstances warrant it,” Epic said.