Unreal Engine 6 is coming, and perhaps sooner than expected. Epic Games and developer Psyonix, which Epic bought in 2019, have announced that Rocket League will be the first title to use the next generation of Epic's real-time 3D creation platform, which is also widely used for animation, VFX and 3D work for marketing and advertising.
The news was announced to a standing ovation at Rocket League Championship Series 2026 in Paris after attendees were shown a glimpse of in-game footage of how the game could look after the transition to UE6. Little more was said, but the tease has people suspecting that Unreal Engine 6 preview builds could arrive earlier than previously expected. And that's reignited debate about Epic's current platform.
A year ago, Epic president Tim Sweeney said that Unreal Engine 6 would unify Unreal Engine and Unreal Editor for Fortnite. The next-gen platform will also shift to multithreaded game simulation to overcome the current single-threaded simulation bottleneck.
At the time, it was said that UE6 remained a few years away. The Rocket League reveal now provides the first clues as to what the timescale might look like. Epic first revealed Unreal Engine 5 in May 2020 and shipped the first early access build a year later. The full release of UE5.0 came after almost another year in April 2022.
A similar timescale could mean a complete release of Unreal Engine 6 in around April 2028.
On social media, devs and gamers are questioning whether this would be desirable. Some suggest developers have yet to realise Unreal Engine 5's potential as shown in the various tech demos, like that based on The Witcher 4.
"Why do we need unreal engine 6? We don't even have enough games developed with Unreal Engine 5 utilizing its complete capability. What are they gonna do with Unreal Engine 6 exactly?" one person wonders.
I have yet to see something similar to the Unreal Engine 5 demo beside a couple of games pic.twitter.com/usirkpGcfXMay 24, 2026
>the new engine>Sutter Fest 6 pic.twitter.com/SL1hXgmV6pMay 24, 2026
The Witcher IV tech demo on UE5 looks incredible. Now with Unreal Engine 6 officially announced, I’m wondering what CD Projekt will do next.We still know nothing about UE6’s features, but the question is already here. Do they keep The Witcher IV on UE5, or move future projects… pic.twitter.com/7qgeGhoK4xMay 24, 2026
While Unreal Engine 5 has the top spot in our guide to the best game development software, the engine has plenty of detractors. News of its successor has resurfaced recurring complaints about optimisation issues.
"They need to just implement raytracing into UE4 at this point. No sense slapping another number on an engine that barely functions on 90% of gaming PCs unless you have some type of frame gen or fsr/dlss enabled," someone else complains.
"Can't wait to launch a UE6 game and immediately turn on upscaling and frame-gen to achieve 60 fps because the problem isn't the engine, it's the stupid, retarded devs who don't know how to use it," another person writes.
Others wonder whether Rocket League is the best choice of game to showcase the new engine. For those not familiar with it, the free-to-play title combines arcade-style football with rocket-powered vehicles. Basically, players use customisable cars to knock a massive ball into the opposing team's goal.
"It doesn’t even matter because it’s a game when you’re going at high speeds and your main focus is hitting the ball, not how does the grass look or how does my ass look. This is confusing," one person suggests.
Let me know your take in the comments.
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