Epic Games Responds to Unreal Engine 5 Criticism

by

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, has addressed the growing controversy surrounding the optimization of Unreal Engine 5. In his response, it appears that Sweeney implies that the root cause might be game developers optimizing their projects too close to the release date.

Over the past few years, Unreal Engine 5 has been increasingly favored due to its user-friendly interface and abundant resources, making it an attractive option for both large and small developers. Yet, this surge in popularity hasn’t been entirely smooth sailing – there have been several high-profile launches of Unreal Engine 5 games that encountered performance problems across multiple platforms, which has resulted in a less than positive outlook towards the engine within online gaming communities.

Epic Games CEO Says Developers Are Optimizing Games Too Late

According to Pure Xbox, Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, pointed out at a roundtable discussion in South Korea that individual developers might be responsible for some PC and GPU compatibility issues with Unreal Engine 5 games. Sweeney stated that the main reason behind these performance issues is the development process itself. Developers often create games intended for high-end hardware, then optimize and test them on less powerful devices during the final stages of development. While optimization is a complex task, it would be more efficient to implement it early in the development phase, before the full-scale content build begins. Sweeney emphasized that there are numerous Unreal Engine 5 games with excellent performance, which suggests that the engine itself is not fundamentally flawed.

To clarify, Sweeney stated that Epic Games is exploring potential fixes in the future. They’re considering incorporating automatic optimization tools for multiple devices, aiming to make the process quicker and more straightforward. Additionally, they plan on increasing developer awareness about the importance of optimizing during the development stage itself.

Another reason UE5 games might not be as optimized as expected is that video game development has become more intricate over the past decade. This complexity makes it harder for engine developers to achieve optimal performance at the engine level. As a result, there’s an increasing need for game and engine developers like us to work together to address these challenges.

There’s no doubt about it: The popularity of Unreal Engine 5 is growing rapidly within the gaming industry and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, last year, it was announced that the Halo series would be transitioning to Unreal Engine 5, abandoning its own Slipspace Engine in the process. Given its increasing accessibility for both large and small developers alike, it’s reasonable to expect a phenomenal few years ahead for UE5.

Read More

2025-08-30 18:46