Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine

Screenshot of Unreal Engine 4.20
Original author(s)	Tim Sweeney
Developer(s)	Epic Games
Stable release	5.4
Written in	C++
Operating system	Windows, Linux, macOS
License	Source-available commercial software with royalty model for commercial use[1]
Website	www.unrealengine.com/en-US

Unreal Engine (UE) is a series of 3D computer graphics and game engines developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter video game Unreal. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genres of games and has been adopted by other industries, most notably the film and television industry. Unreal Engine is written in C++ and features a high degree of portability, supporting a wide range of desktop, mobile, console, and virtual reality platforms.

The latest generation, Unreal Engine 5, was launched in April 2022. Its source code is available on GitHub, and commercial use is granted based on a royalty model, with Epic charging 5% of revenues over US $1 million, which is waived for games published on the Epic Games Store. Epic has incorporated features in the engine from acquired companies such as Quixel, which is seen as helped by Fortnite's revenue.

In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the world's "most successful videogame engine" by Guinness World Records.^[2]