Editing Unreal Engine (section)

==History==
{{Video game timeline
| compressempty = yes
| 1998 = Unreal Engine 1
| 2001 = Unreal Engine 2
| 2006 = Unreal Engine 3
| 2014 = Unreal Engine 4
| 2022 = Unreal Engine 5
| TBA = Unreal Engine 6
}}

===First generation===
{{Main|Unreal Engine 1}}
Unreal Engine 1 was initially developed in 1995 by Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney for [[Unreal (1998 video game)|''Unreal'']] and used [[software rendering]]. It supported [[Windows]], [[Linux]], [[Macintosh operating systems|Mac]] and [[Unix]]. Epic later began to license the Engine to other game studios.

=== Unreal Engine 2 ===
{{Main|Unreal Engine 2}}
Unreal Engine 2 transitioned the engine from software rendering to hardware rendering and brought support for the [[PlayStation 2]], [[Xbox (console)|Xbox]], and [[GameCube]] [[Video game console|consoles]]. The first game using UE2 was released in 2002 and its last update was shipped in 2005.

===Unreal Engine 3===
{{Main|Unreal Engine 3}}
Unreal Engine 3 was one of the first game engines to support [[Multithreading (computer architecture)|multithreading]]. It used [[DirectX#DirectX 9|DirectX 9]] as its baseline graphics API, simplifying its rendering code. The first games using UE3 were released at the end of 2006.

===Unreal Engine 4===
{{Main|Unreal Engine 4}}
Unreal Engine 4 brought support for physically based materials and the "Blueprints" visual scripting system. The first game using UE4 was released in April 2014. It was the first version of Unreal to be free to download with royalty payments on game revenue.

===Unreal Engine 5===
{{Main|Unreal Engine 5}}
Unreal Engine 5 features Nanite, a virtualized geometry system that allows game developers to use arbitrarily high quality meshes with automatically generated Level of Detail, and Lumen, a dynamic global illumination and reflections system that uses software and hardware ray tracing. It was revealed in May 2020 and officially released in April 2022.

===Unreal Engine 6===
Sweeney discussed Unreal Engine 6 on the [[Lex Fridman]] podcast in 2025, and indicated that the first preview builds would be available in two to three years. The next version will aim to unify the currently separate development streams used for ''Fortnite'' and the broader engine.<ref>{{cite web |title=Tim Sweeney Addresses Unreal Engine 6 at Lex Fridman Podcast |url=https://80.lv/articles/epic-games-ceo-tim-sweeney-addresses-unreal-engine-6-at-lex-fridman-podcast/ |website=80.lv |language=en |date=1 May 2025}}</ref>