Unreal Engine 6 announced before we got GTA 6 trailer 2

Can you believe that we’re getting word on the next iteration of Unreal Engine before we even got the second GTA VI trailer?

So much has happened in the last 18 months since the first trailer for GTA VI dropped, and the most recent event is Tim Sweeney of Epic Games announcing that Unreal Engine 6 is in the works.

Not second trailer for GTA 6, but Unreal Engine 6 is on the way

In an interview with Lex Fridman, Sweeney was asked about the capabilities of Unreal Engine 6, and when developers might be able to get their hands on it.

On this, the head of Epic Games said that the engine is about two or three years out, but things are coming together to merge the current threads of Unreal Engine 5, while adding in new features.

At the moment, Unreal Engine is split between what all developers have access to, and what’s possible in Fortnite creation using assets.

Some tools aren’t available in Fortnite creation, or UEFN, and working on several branches of the engine will be splitting the team developing Unreal.

With Unreal Engine 6, they aim to bring everything together, in one place, while also working on scaleability.

Sweeney mentions that large-scale simulations will be possible with the new engine, plus it will give developers “full capabilities” to build their game and ship it anywhere they choose.

Interestingly, it seems Fortnite’s items, which likely includes its weapons, will be available to developers, so we might get some shooters and action games that use the Fortnite template as a base.

From what Sweeney says, it appears this will be an evolution of what’s already in place for Unreal Engine 5, simply growing it and expanding the already helpful areas of the engine.

It’s not going to be an overhaul, and while the games built on UE6 will still look better than on UE5, it sounds like the gap won’t be as huge as the previous jump from UE4.