Epic CEO Says Unreal Engine Can Save Gaming From Roblox

Epic Video games doesn’t simply function Fortnite, Rocket League, and a PC gaming storefront. It’s additionally the caretaker of Unreal Engine, a set of instruments powering every part from The Witcher 4 to the subsequent Halo. CEO Tim Sweeney spent his time on stage throughout Unreal Fest 2026 this week in Chicago pitching Unreal Engine 6 as the choice to a gaming ecosystem dominated by closed platforms like Roblox.

Sweeney mentioned conventional AAA gaming is going through a “time of each disaster and alternative” because the outdated methods of doing issues fail. “We’re seeing typically a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of dev prices adopted by tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of income,” he mentioned. “The dev prices are persevering with to develop. It feels to many like a tidal wave is sweeping over the AAA recreation enterprise.”

Regardless of shedding 1,000 of his workers earlier this yr, Sweeney claimed Fortnite is flourishing once more, and video games prefer it are positioned to dominate in a market the place newer gamers place a premium on socializing collectively. “The opposite large change is the economic system is shifting from shopping for video games to issues in video games,” he added. “Whether or not you’re a fan or not, it’s simple.” The ultimate risk to traditional fashions round gaming, in keeping with the chief, is the ever-more aggressive battle for consideration. Roblox is successful that battle. Sweeney thinks different recreation makers have to embrace Unreal Engine to outlive that onslaught.

“There’s two large predictions for the long run as these issues reverberate all through the business,” Sweeney mentioned on stage. “One view of the long run is that Roblox grows and eats gaming. Lots of people are saying this on-line. You understand, what you will have there’s a centralized platform with a recreation keeper that takes greater than 70 % of income and has 450 million customers on board. In order that’s an actual problem to recreation builders.”

He continued:

However we consider in a really totally different future. A a lot brighter one for the individuals within the room. That could be a way forward for high-quality gaming, rising to the problem and linking up our content material, linking up our communities, and linking up our economies to ship enjoyable and to serve avid gamers with nice video games in a method we’ve by no means finished earlier than. To perform that, all of us want to vary the way in which we construct video games. Construct higher video games, extra effectively, and construct for linked video games, the place all gamers are linked, and economies are linked, so gamers, as a substitute of seeing these as remoted merchandise, see them as a part of a worldwide ecosystem that each one recreation builders take part in collectively.

You understand, we need to work with all of you and with all the sport builders to attain this collectively. The factor with Unreal Engine 6 is our technological basis for it, and we consider this can be a large problem that all of us should rise to. We have to win the competitors for gamers. I’m not solely in opposition to different video games but additionally in opposition to YouTube, TikTok, and every part else that individuals are doing on-line. This was very a lot on our minds after we set about constructing Unreal Engine 6.

Sweeney has been speaking a couple of model of this international ecosystem for a number of years now. Beforehand, it was tethered extra carefully to a imaginative and prescient for an interoperable metaverse. The Epic cofounder is laying out a extra delicate imaginative and prescient for collaboration and cooperation right here between large corporations that depend on Unreal Engine to make their video games. Sadly, this new framework can also be married to an inflow of recent generative AI integrations within the upcoming model of Unreal Engine. Some notable builders are already re-evaluating collaborations with Epic over the controversial tech’s inclusion.

Is an alternative choice to Roblox the place one firm nonetheless controls the instruments one of the best recreation builders can do? Perhaps not. Although one factor Epic does have on its facet is far more beneficiant revenue-sharing phrases and anti-trust authorized battles that proceed to poke holes in monopolies within the cell gaming panorama. “We have now the chance to type up Group Open and to outline the way forward for gaming collectively once more,” Sweeney mentioned right this moment. We’ll see who finally ends up becoming a member of him.