Epic Games Unveils Unreal Engine 6 Along With 'New Era' of Rocket League

Epic Games has shared a first look at Unreal Engine 6, the next iteration of its in-house game engine. Rocket League developer Psyonix unveiled a new era for the multiplayer sports title at Rocket League Championship Series Paris Major on Monday, showing a brief look at the game running in Unreal Engine 6.

Unreal Engine 6 Unveiled

The Rocket League gameplay footage was captured real-time in game, Psyonix confirmed in the teaser video. The developer teased “the future of Rocket League, the next ten years,” but did share details about the next major engine update.

The video showed off a roster of shiny cars in action in Rocket League, before unveiling a logo for Unreal Engine 6.

Epic Games and Psyonix did not detail the features and upgrades coming with the new engine. Epic will likely do a full reveal and feature breakdown in the near future. Unreal Engine 5, for comparison, was announced with a detailed PS5 tech demo in 2020, showcasing gameplay footage and new graphical features. Since then, Unreal Engine 5 has become ubiqutous, powering many triple-A games on current-gen consoles.

This was the first time Epic showed a game running on Unreal Engine 6. However, the company did not announce a release date for the updated version of Rocket League running on UE6. Epic Game's popular Battle Royale title, Fortnite, is likely to get the Unreal Engine 6 update at some point, as well.

Epic Games showcased Unreal Engine 5 in a detailed PS5 tech demo in 2020, months before the current-gen consoles launched. The demo unveiled new technologies like Lumen and Nanite that help generate photoreal graphics.

While the bold promise of Unreal Engine 5 might not have been fully delivered in the years since, the engine has become an industry standard. Several games, both big and small, have utilised UE5, despite concerns of performance issues with the engine. Most notably, upcoming Halo games will be built on Unreal Engine 5.

Additionally, CD Projekt Red, too, has ditched its in-house Red Engine in favour of Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2, both of which are in development at the Polish studio.