During the State of Unreal keynote presentation at Unreal Fest Chicago 2026, Epic Games announced the official launch of Unreal Engine 5.8 and shared an in-depth roadmap for the next-generation Unreal Engine 6, detailing how it will unify UE5 and the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) into a single framework powered by the Verse programming language for massive, multi-server persistent worlds. This footage has been provided by Epic and edited by us. Unreal Engine 6’s early access is confirmed to come out late 2027.

Additionally, Gears of War: E-Day and No Law served as the premier tech showcases for Unreal Engine 5’s groundbreaking capabilities, particularly leveraging the new MegaLights technology to handle thousands of dynamic, shadow-casting light sources in real time. The Coalition demonstrated how they are utilizing these advanced lighting pipelines and Nanite to achieve a darker, horrifyingly detailed atmosphere for Gears of War: E-Day while strictly targeting a smooth 60 FPS performance. Meanwhile, Tor Frick from Neon Giant showed how a smaller independent team was able to rapidly build the dense, vertical cyber-noir city of Port Desire for No Law, using a powerful combination of Nanite, Lumen, MetaHuman, and PCG to create handcrafted spaces filled with NPCs that dynamically react to shifting environment lights.

00:00 State of Unreal 2026

01:54 Gears of War E-Day Tech Demo

06:16 No Law Tech Demo

11:32 Unreal Engine 6 Presentation

17:26 Unreal Engine 5.8