Unreal Engine 6 revealed by Epic Games in the weirdest way possible

Rocket League car in Unreal Engine 6 — The future is… shiny (Epic Games)

Epic Games has revealed a first look at Unreal Engine 6, but it hasn’t used any kind of fancy demo to show off the new technology.

It feels like many developers are only just getting round to making games for Unreal Engine 5, after it was released three years ago, but Epic Games is already teeing up what’s next for its widely adopted graphics engine.

At the Rocket League Championship Series esports tournament in Paris on Sunday (May 24), a teaser was released showing off a ‘new era’ for the vehicular football game. Surprisingly though, this wasn’t your average graphical overhaul for an 11-year-old title.

Instead, the trailer serves as an introduction to Unreal Engine 6, as shown by the closing sting of the Unreal logo alongside the number six.

Epic owns Rocket League developer Psyonix, but the choice to debut a new engine with a game that already exists is unusual, especially as the game in question isn’t exactly known for its graphics.

For Unreal Engine 5, Epic concocted a Tomb Raider-style demo with sandy mountains. Unreal Engine 4, meanwhile, had a walkthrough of a fantasy world which looked like The Elder Scrolls sandwiched with Doom, while the third iteration had an impressive Blade Runner-esque clip.

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None of these demos ever became actual games, which is why it’s unusual to use something like Rocket League to make such a significant announcement.

Additionally, the clip doesn’t exactly make a big impression in terms of showing off Unreal Engine 6. The car panels have a shiny gloss to them, but there’s nothing here to make your mouth salivate for the PlayStation 6 or Project Helix – where presumably this new engine will be widely used.

The reveal of this new engine carries significance beyond games too. Unreal Engine 5 is increasingly used to create special effects across movies and TV shows, so you might’ve thought a trailer for its successor would try to appeal to Hollywood more directly.

If anything, this specific reveal is more significant to Rocket League than anything else. The sports game has been stuck in Unreal Engine 3 since it launched in 2015, so with this Unreal Engine 6 overhaul, it’s set for a multi-generational leap.

The trailer also briefly shows an image from Epic’s juggernaut shooter Fortnite, which will presumably get the same Unreal Engine 6 treatment, alongside Rocket League.

It’s unclear when this new version of Rocket League will arrive, but with the next generation of consoles expected in 2027, we imagine it will coincide with those. It’s possible though that this new version will also run on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.