Epic Games Embraces Generative AI in Unreal Engine, Details UE6 and UE 5.8

During The State of the Unreal keynote at Unreal Fest on Wednesday, Epic Games revealed just how it's embracing generative AI in Unreal Engine (UE). Along with offering the first details on Unreal Engine 6 (UE6), the company discussed new features for Unreal Engine 5.8, which it also released on Wednesday. As part of the latest update, Epic is offering an experimental Model Context Protocol (MCP) plugin that will allow developers to hook gen AI models such as Claude and Gemini into Unreal Engine. It's looking to make the MCP an integral part of UE6.

Marcus Wassmer, the head of Epic's development team, wrote in a blog post that the gen AI models can act as "creativity and productivity multipliers so that teams can focus their efforts on the essential creative and technical tasks of development rather than time on time-consuming manual tasks."

The blog post went on to state that, "our goal for UE6 is to greatly reduce the tedious work in authoring content to leave more time for creative exploration, and increase the amount of iterations a team can make to polish their content. UE6 will ship with tools and workflows where you can choose to bring your own favorite models, battletested against internal development and in UEFN [Unreal Engine for Fortnite]."

Epic gave a demonstration of Claude Code connecting to UE, then pulling objects from an asset library and placing them in a virtual living room. Developers can still move the objects around manually in the UE editor.

The company also showed how a developer might use Claude Code in UE to build a city that can be automatically adjusted as assets like parks are added. Along with modifying assets, gen AI models can adjust factors like lighting and match atmospheric conditions to real-world examples.

In a video showing off Unreal Engine 5.8, Epic suggested that developers could use the likes of Claude to "automate asset creation, testing and optimization. The plugin can access core UE systems such as blueprints, assets, levels, materials, meshes and many more."

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that Epic is going all in on gen AI in UE6. Back in November, CEO Tim Sweeney suggested that a "made with AI" tag may be "relevant to art exhibits for authorship disclosure, and to digital content licensing marketplaces where buyers need to understand the rights situation. It makes no sense for game stores, where AI will be involved in nearly all future production."

In January, the Game Developers Conference published its 2026 State of the Game Industry report, which was based on a survey of more than 2,300 game industry workers. Of those, 36 percent said they were using gen AI tools as part of their job. Most of those using such tools were doing so for research and brainstorming (81 percent) but also for tasks like prototyping (35 percent). However, 52 percent of respondents said they thought gen AI was bad for the industry. That figure was up from 30 percent in the 2025 edition of the survey and 18 percent in 2024. Only seven percent said it was having a positive impact.

Elsewhere at Unreal Fest, it emerged that Epic is merging Unreal Engine 5 and UEFN into a single platform in UE6. One other thing that the company is testing is the ability to pull Fortnite skins into other UE6 games, and to let developers move their skins in the other direction. The company aims to release UE6 in early access in late 2027, with a full release lined up for around 12-18 months later.

Epic had some news to share about collaborations as well. Those creating Fortnite experiences using UEFN will soon be able to make games based on The Simpsons, just as they can currently do with Star Wars IP. The company also revealed that more than 30 gaming collaborations are lined up for Fortnite this year, including Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, Vampire Survivors, Control Resonant and Phantom Blade Zero.