With the release of Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 1 today, developer Epic has finally done what they’ve been promising for a while – and have moved the entire battle royale game over to Unreal Engine 5, the latest version of its own graphics technology.
Back in 2020 with the launch of Unreal Engine 5, Epic promised that it would migrate its most popular game Fortnite to the new graphics engine by “mid-2021”, which obviously didn’t happen when it was supposed to. Fortnite has used Unreal Engine 4 since its inception, so players have probably been wondering when the battle royale would finally transition to the improved tech.
That time is now, apparently, as with the release of Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 1 today the game has officially been upgraded to Unreal Engine 5 – which probably explains why today’s 19.00 update was so sizeable. It should mean the game looks and performs better, as well as having better effects and extra detail on objects.
A few of these changes can be glimpsed in the first Chapter 3 trailer, which – in-between appearances by Spider-Man – shows off improved environmental destruction, like trees falling and knocking over other trees. There’s also a new weather system too, which even includes Battlefield 2042-baiting tornadoes.
Chapter 3 – Season 1 is now CONFIRMED to be using Unreal Engine 5
— iFireMonkey (@iFireMonkey) December 5, 2021
Fortnite Chapter 3 is now live and still generally free to play, so you can go check out the Unreal Engine 5 loveliness for yourself if you wish. If you want to get involved, Season 1 is down to last until March so you have plenty of time to earn Spider-Man on the Battle Pass.