Unreal Engine 6: Building a Unified Metaverse

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has outlined the company's forthcoming initiatives, encompassing the development of the next-generation Unreal Engine 6 as part of its broader Metaverse project ambitions.

Epic's Roblox, Fortnite Metaverse Planned Alongside Unreal Engine 6Epic CEO Tim Sweeney Envisions an Interoperable Metaverse and Interoperable Economy

In an interview with The Verge, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has revealed the company's next ambitious project. Sweeney detailed his vision for an interoperable "metaverse" that will leverage the marketplace and assets of major games utilizing their Unreal engine, such as Fortnite, Roblox, and other Unreal Engine games and related projects.

Sweeney told The Verge that Epic is now financially secure enough to realize these plans for the decade. "We have substantial funding compared to almost any company in the industry and are making prudent forward investments that we could adjust as our circumstances change," he explained. "We feel we’re ideally positioned to execute for the rest of this decade and achieve all of our plans at our scale."

Epic's next steps will involve its advanced development tools, Unreal Engine, along with the Unreal Editor for Fortnite—essentially, a sophisticated Unreal Engine 6 combining the two, which Epic hopes to accomplish within several years. "The true power will emerge when we integrate these two environments so we have the full power of our high-end game engine combined with the user-friendliness we've built into [Unreal Editor for Fortnite]," Sweeney said. "That’s going to take several years. And when that process is complete, that will be Unreal Engine 6."

According to Sweeney, the planned Unreal Engine 6 will let developers—AAA game developers and indie game developers alike—"build an application once and then deploy it as a standalone game for any platform," which opens the doors for an interoperable metaverse that utilizes this content and "technology foundation."

Sweeney further explained, "We announced that we’re working with Disney to build a Disney ecosystem that’s theirs, but it fully interoperates with the Fortnite ecosystem. And what we’re talking about with Unreal Engine 6 is the technology foundation that’s going to make that possible for everybody. Triple-A game developers to indie game developers to Fortnite creators achieving that same sort of thing."

However, Sweeney said that it hasn't initiated "those sorts of discussions" with Roblox and Minecraft owner Microsoft yet, "but we will, over time," he added. "The whole premise here is that players are gravitating towards games which they can play together with all their friends, and players are spending more on digital items in games that they trust they’re going to play for a long time," Sweeney said, detailing a revenue-sharing model he hopes to advocate.

"If you’re just experimenting with a game, why would you spend money to buy an item that you’re never going to use again? If we have an interoperable economy, then that will increase player trust that today’s spending on buying digital goods results in things that they’re going to own for a long period of time, and it will work in all the places they go."

Epic EVP Saxs Persson stated, "There’s no reason why we couldn’t have a unified approach to interaction between Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite. From our perspective, that would be fantastic, because it keeps people connected and lets the best ecosystem prevail."

"We’re attempting to innovate. We’re simply trying to expand upon something we already observe in Fortnite. That’s all we’re doing—really focusing on what we know is currently successful. That’s what Tim is conveying," Persson said in a prior interview with The Verge where the executives detailed how this metaverse might function.

Persson added, "If you play with your friends, if you have more options, you stay longer, play more, you enjoy your time more. The equation is quite straightforward." As Sweeney explained, "in the gaming industry, there are enough ecosystems and publishers with their own ecosystems that there isn’t any possibility of one company completely dominating them all, as has occurred in smartphones."