Epic CEO Tim Sweeney on Unreal Engine 5 Optimization: Developers Need to 'Optimize Early'
It’s the worst kept secret in the industry right now: a whole lot of games built on Unreal Engine 5 run like absolute garbage on anything short of a NASA supercomputer. As the engine becomes the default for countless studios, the chorus of complaints about stuttering, hitching, and framerates that resemble a PowerPoint presentation has grown deafening. So, what does the man at the top of the Unreal food chain think? According to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, the problem isn't the engine, it's the people using it.
Speaking after his keynote at Unreal Fest in South Korea, Sweeney laid out his diagnosis for the plague of poorly optimized games, and it’s a spicy one.
It's Not a Bug, It's a Feature (of Your Workflow)
In what some might call a masterclass in passing the buck, Sweeney stated that the "main cause is the order of development". He argues that too many studios build their shiny new games for top-of-the-line hardware first, leaving the messy business of optimization and testing for low-end machines until the very end of the cycle. It’s a workflow that, according to Sweeney, is fundamentally backward.
The ideal approach, he suggests, is for developers to "optimize early," baking performance considerations into the process long before all the content is even built out. It's a direct shot across the bow of any studio that thinks they can just bolt on performance at the last minute and call it a day, especially when complex features like Lumen and Nanite demand careful planning from the get-go.
Epic's Grand Plan to Not Get Blamed
To solve this, Epic is launching a two-pronged attack that sounds suspiciously like a re-education campaign. First, they plan to bolster the engine with more automated optimization tools. Second, they're expanding "developer education" to hammer home the "optimize early" mantra. And if that doesn't work? Sweeney says Epic's own engineers can step in to help.
They're also promising to integrate optimization lessons learned from their golden goose, Fortnite, directly into Unreal Engine, which should theoretically help games run better on less powerful PCs. It’s a nice thought, but it still frames the issue as a skill gap on the part of developers, not a foundational challenge with the engine itself.
A Harsh Truth or Just Passing the Buck?
While there’s certainly truth to Sweeney’s claims about workflow, it’s hard not to see this as Epic deflecting responsibility. The statement places the burden squarely on game studios, which can be a monumental challenge for smaller teams without the specialized knowledge or budget to wrangle UE5’s more advanced, performance-hungry features. For them, the message feels less like helpful advice and more like a corporate version of "git gud."
Ultimately, the proof will be in the performance. With massive, highly anticipated projects like The Witcher 4 being built on Unreal Engine 5, Epic is under immense pressure to ensure its tools are not just powerful, but practical. If Sweeney’s push for new tools and re-education works, we might see UE5’s reputation shift from "gorgeous but heavy" to just plain gorgeous. If not, we should probably all start saving up for new graphics cards.