We recently had the chance to chat with Joe Kreiner from the Unreal Engine business development team about the ways in which Unreal Engine is empowering today’s developers. Check it out!

How is Unreal Engine enabling today's developers to achieve their goals?

Unreal Engine is a complete suite of creation tools designed to meet ambitious artistic visions while being flexible enough to ensure success for teams of all sizes. As an established, industry-leading engine, Unreal delivers powerful, proven performance that developers can trust.

Creating a game requires flexibility and whether a team is made up of five or 500 developers, Unreal’s pre-built, modular systems, customizable plugins and source control integration empowers developers to meet their project’s unique needs.

Plus, Unreal Engine is a full product suite that comes production-ready out of the box without the need for additional plugins or purchases. That being said, there is an Unreal Engine Marketplace with thousands of assets and tools to help developers jump start projects and complete work even more quickly.

What are some of the most useful developer tools found in Unreal Engine?

It depends on the particular developer, but we hear a lot about the impact and benefit of Blueprints, which is our visual scripting tool that allows developers to rapidly prototype and ship playable interactive content without touching a line of code.

Beyond that, complete C++ source code is universally appealing and allows developers to study, customize and debug the entire engine if needed, and to ultimately ship their project without obstruction.

For those just getting started, we offer free project templates, high-quality assets and rich learning resources. From day one with Unreal, developers can instantly access content across a variety of visual styles and genres while engaging with the engine. Epic has developed and released these feature showcases for free to the community, and developers can use them in their own Unreal Engine projects with no strings attached. There are so many more tools to talk about, and those interested can learn more here.

Why is Unreal Engine so popular among developers?

Unreal Engine has been around for over 20 years and the highest caliber of professionals have continually chosen Unreal to push the limits of visually beautiful experiences. Ever since Unreal Engine 4 became free, everyone from aspiring developers to seasoned veterans have contributed to a community with a shared passion for creation and a commitment to achieving excellence.

Also, we at Epic use the engine ourselves to make large-scale games that support millions of players, and this results in powerful tools and pipelines that enable developers to achieve their goals. From AAA blockbusters to inspiring indie games, we’re proud of our development community and the amazing experiences they create.

How can those interested in exploring Unreal Engine get started?

Unreal Engine is free to use and can be downloaded at unrealengine.com. This isn’t just a piece of the engine either - we give you everything so you can build anything. You get all tools, all features, all platforms, all source code, complete projects, sample content, regular updates and bug fixes.

Beyond the engine and learning resources, the Unreal Engine forums are filled with experienced developers discussing timely, relevant topics to help others start, refine and ship projects of all shapes and sizes. In addition, our free AnswerHub community support offers Q&A on topics spanning code, content, and workflow. We’re fortunate to have a very friendly, supportive community that is especially welcoming to newcomers.

As I mentioned, UE4 is free to use, with a 5% royalty on gross product revenue after the first $3,000 per game per calendar quarter from commercial products. Our entire model is built around developer success, so we continually strive to build the best tools that will help developers be even more competitive in the market.

We also have custom licensing terms available should that be a better fit for a particular team. We encourage everyone to visit the website, download the engine, and start their creative journey with Unreal.

You can get more information about the Unreal Engine from unrealengine.com. You can also get upto date news on Epic games from epicgames.com.