State of Unreal 2026: Top news from the show
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Epic Games held its State of Unreal 2026 event, drawing 2,000+ in-person developers and hundreds of thousands online. Key announcements include: Unreal Engine 5.8 is now available with performance improvements and a new experimental MCP plugin enabling AI models like Claude and Gemini to act as active collaborators within UE projects. New media and entertainment workflows bring diffusion models into the engine for image/video generation using depth passes, normal maps, and camera data. UEFN has surpassed $1 billion paid out to Fortnite developers, with iteration times cut 40% and mobile playtime more than doubling. The Simpsons IP toolkit is coming to UEFN developers later this year. The Epic Games Store is undergoing a full launcher and backend rebuild, with third-party PC game spending hitting a record $400 million in 2025. Community highlights include The Coalition's MegaLights work in Gears of War: E-Day and Riot Games migrating Teamfight Tactics to UE5.
