If Metal Gear Solid Delta looks disappointing on an €800 console, it’s not Unreal Engine 5’s fault—at least according to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. He distances the engine from the criticism and instead points at developers who only optimize for high-end systems.

Unreal Engine 5 remains one of the most powerful and ambitious tools in game development, but it has also sparked plenty of controversy. Since its official launch in 2022, following two years of beta testing, the number of games built with UE5 has grown significantly. Yet one recurring issue keeps coming up: performance. Bugs, resource allocation problems, and frame rate drops have plagued UE5 titles, drawing widespread criticism. Epic Games’ CEO Tim Sweeney, however, insists that the engine itself isn’t to blame—developers are.

According to Sweeney, too many studios prioritize high-end hardware during development and only optimize for mid-range or low-end platforms at the very end of production. This leads to stutters, frame drops, and instability in games made with UE5, including Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers. He argues that given the complexity of today’s games, these problems can’t be fixed at the engine level alone and require close cooperation between developers and Epic’s engineers.

Epic promises better support anyway

One of UE5’s recurring issues is the heavy load of handling graphical resources and advanced physics, which hits mid- and low-tier PCs and consoles the hardest. Other common complaints include long loading times, stuttering in detailed open worlds, incompatibility with certain GPUs, and excessive memory usage. For smaller indie studios, these hurdles are even more difficult to overcome given their limited resources.

To ease these problems, Epic announced plans to expand UE5 support with new automated optimization tools and more developer training, promoting the philosophy of “optimizing from the start.” Lessons learned from Fortnite optimizations will also be integrated into Unreal Engine, helping games run better even on less powerful hardware. Additionally, Epic’s engineers will directly assist projects when needed, ensuring more consistent performance across the board.

Through these measures, Epic hopes to balance UE5’s technological ambition with accessibility and stability for all players. While performance issues won’t vanish completely, a mix of education, technical support, and advanced optimization tools should minimize problems and deliver smoother experiences, allowing both big and small studios to fully harness the engine’s potential.

Source: 3djuegos