Fortnite moves to Unreal Engine 5 with launch of Chapter 3

Fortnite's development will finally be moving to the latest version of the game engine.

Image via Epic Games

With the arrival of Fortnite’s Chapter Three, the game’s development has “flipped” to Unreal Engine 5, the official Unreal Engine Twitter account revealed yesterday.

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Unreal is a game engine that was developed by Epic Games and first shown in 1998 within an FPS game called Unreal. Although it was developed for FPS titles, Unreal Engine is used in a multitude of games, as well as in TV and film. Epic’s game engine has received numerous awards, including the Guinness World Record for most successful video game engine.

It was announced last year that Fortnite would make the switch in mid-2021, right after Unreal Engine 5 was unveiled in a tech demo that showed off its potential. Initially released earlier this year in early access, game developers all over the world have had the opportunity to try out the new features of the latest version of the game engine, and more projects are bound to use it in the coming year.

Several projects from large studios, such as The Coalition, have already begun to use Unreal Engine 5. But Fortnite is by far the biggest project to make use of the engine. Chapter Three gives players a new, different map, a new battle pass that includes Spider-Man, and new gameplay features.

Unreal Engine 5 will support current and next-gen consoles, PC, Mac, iOS, and Android when it’s fully released in 2022.