With Unreal Engine 5 titles facing a string of performance optimization issues that have led to declining reviews and criticism, Epic Games has shared its official stance on the matter.

Epic Games held a media roundtable at Unreal Fest Seoul 2025 at COEX on the 25th. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney and Epic Games Korea CEO Park Sung-chul attended the event to discuss various topics regarding Epic Games and Unreal Engine, including the recent optimization issues prominent in new UE5 titles.

Sweeney presented two core methods to address these optimization challenges. First, he highlighted the strengthening of engine-level automation support, stating, "Optimization work still requires a lot of manual effort. We will expand automated optimization features to existing devices so that developers can respond more quickly and efficiently."

Furthermore, he emphasized a commitment to developer education and awareness, explaining, "Optimization should not be approached at the final stage of development, but throughout the end-to-end process. We plan to strengthen educational support by having engineers directly intervene to transfer optimization techniques and share troubleshooting methods." He also mentioned efforts to provide higher-quality experiences through optimization, including cooperation with Qualcomm, which holds a high market share in the Android sector.

At the same time, he acknowledged that the complexity of optimization issues is increasing. "Compared to a decade ago, it has become much more difficult to handle at the engine level because the scale and complexity of games have increased significantly," Sweeney emphasized. "Therefore, cases requiring close cooperation between developers and engine creators are increasing." He added, "We are working to apply optimization techniques used in Fortnite to other projects to ensure support for low-spec environments."

Meanwhile, regarding developers struggling with optimization, Sweeney advised, "Most games are developed based on top-tier hardware, and then testing for low-spec devices is conducted in the final stages. This development structure often leads to problems in low-spec environments. Optimization is never an easy task, and it is ideal to perform optimization in parallel from the early stages of development, even before the content build."