Epic CEO confirms Unreal 5 engine will run on PS5 and Xbox Series X

Unreal Engine 5 — (Image credit: Epic Games)

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has clarified that the studio's next generation game engine, Unreal 5, will run on both PS5 and Xbox Series X.

Revealed as part of Summer Games Fest last week, Epic used Sony's next-gen console to show off a prototype demo demonstrating the technical possibilities of Unreal Engine 5, which is launching next year.

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The focus on PS5 left some wondering whether Xbox Series X, Microsoft's own new piece of hardware scheduled to launch alongside Sony's later this year, would also be able to run Unreal 5, and any games that use the engine to operate.

Thankfully, in a follow up tweet last week, Sweeney clarified that the engine will be "fully supported on both" consoles, suggesting that Epic used the PS5 to showcase its tech after "years of discussions" with Sony about the future of game hardware.

The Unreal Engine 5 demo on PlayStation 5 was the culmination of years of discussions between Sony and Epic on future graphics and storage architectures.The Nanite and Lumen tech powering it will be fully supported on both PS5 and Xbox Series X and will be awesome on both.May 15, 2020

And in case that wasn't clear enough, Sweeney also promised that "high end PCs" will be able to run even the most ambitious games built in Unreal Engine 5, "with features for scaling the content down to run on current generation platforms using traditional rendering and lighting techniques."

While last week's demo was mighty impressive, here's hoping we see some real, upcoming games built in the engine soon. Relatedly, rumour has it that PlayStation has a PS5 event scheduled for next month....

Here's what developers had to say about the Unreal Engine 5 demo. You can also watch the entire thing for yourself in the video below.