Reddit: Why Unreal Engine 6 when Unreal Engine 5 still isn’t finished?

Unreal Engine 6 was officially announced alongside a graphics update for Rocket League, but early reactions have been more skeptical than enthusiastic. On Reddit, many users are essentially asking: “Why is Unreal Engine 6 already coming when Unreal Engine 5 still doesn't feel finished?” Developers still report persistent issues with performance, stuttering and features that continue to feel experimental. Technologies such as Lumen and Nanite may be technically impressive, but they still come with high hardware requirements and ongoing optimization problems.

Many observers are now wondering why Epic Games is not making Unreal Engine 5 run smoothly before moving on to Unreal Engine 6. One obvious theory is that UE6 could also serve as a fresh start for Epic, helping the company distance itself from UE5's somewhat tarnished reputation. At the same time, major additions such as improved multithreading, Verse and deeper integration with Fortnite and UEFN may affect the engine so profoundly that Epic prefers to present them as a new major version rather than another UE5 update.

Game developers are cautious

Besides gamers, game developers are watching the situation especially closely. Switching to a new engine can create opportunities, but in practice it can also mean plenty of trouble: broken plugins, changed workflows and new bugs. Many developers therefore want to watch UE6 from a safe distance for now instead of moving active productions straight to the new version. One of the top comments in the Reddit discussion appears to come from a developer:

It’s hard to get excited for UE6 when I spent a lot of UE5’s lifecycle waiting for things to not feel experimental. This doesn’t bode well for that reason. That said, it’s a free engine that I benefit from, so unless they completely break the things I need, I don’t care.

If Epic delivers on its multithreading promises, everything could turn out well

Still, people are not entirely opposed to Unreal Engine 6. If Epic manages to deliver the promised improvements to multithreading support, UE6 could address exactly the areas where UE5 is criticized most: CPU utilization and stuttering. Ideally, the new engine would deliver graphics quality comparable to UE5 while running much more efficiently, with lower system requirements, more stable frame rates and fewer technical compromises. If Epic succeeds, the current skepticism toward UE6 could fade rather quickly.