Epic Games Unveils Unreal Engine 5, Coming in 2021 With Mac and iOS Support

Epic Games today unveiled Unreal Engine 5, the newest iteration of its game engine that's used by game developers for many high-profile games. A demo video running on a developer version of the PS5 hardware shows what Unreal Engine 5 is capable of.


Unreal Engine 5 focuses on photorealism that's on par with movie CG and real life, and it will be released in 2021. Unreal Engine 5 will support current-generation consoles, next-generation consoles, PCs, Macs, iOS, and Android.

‌Epic Games‌ detailed two new core technologies that will be coming in Unreal Engine 5, including Nanite virtualized geometry for importing film-quality source art directly into Unreal Engine as virtualized textures and Lumen, a fully dynamic global illumination system designed to react to scene and light changes, which will allow for more realistic shadows and rendering of moving light sources.


Unreal Engine 5 has been designed to make it easy for development teams of all sizes to take advantage of content libraries and tools to create games with unprecedented levels of detail and interactivity.

In addition to Unreal Engine 5, Epic today announced a change to how its royalties work. Developers are now able to keep all royalties for the first $1 million in sales generated, and then it will take five percent of sales after that. Previously, Epic collected royalties on all games after the first $3000 in sales.

Epic is also launching Epic Online Services, an online multi-platform game management system that was originally created for Fortnite. Epic Online Services provides developers with tools for cross-platform matchmaking and account management.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Render Front Page Tech

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. iPhone 17 Pro's alleged design via Front Page Tech Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone...
iCloud General Feature Redux

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Receive a New Perk

Thursday March 20, 2025 12:01 am PDT by
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost. The new perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which launched in the App Store last month. In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby showers, and more. Anyone ...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock

iOS 19 Coming in June With These New Features

Thursday March 20, 2025 2:04 pm PDT by
While the first iOS 19 beta is still more than two months away, there are already plenty of rumors about the upcoming software update. Below, we recap the key iOS 19 rumors so far. visionOS-Like Design In January, the YouTube channel Front Page Tech revealed a redesigned Camera app that is allegedly planned for iOS 19. According to Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser, the Camera app...
iOS 18

Top 5 New Features Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday March 21, 2025 3:26 pm PDT by
We're not getting new Siri Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.4 as expected, but the upcoming update does have quite a few new additions that will be worth upgrading for. We've rounded up the five best features to look forward to, and if you're not running the beta, you can expect to get access to these in early April. Priority Notifications If you have an iPhone or iPad that supports...
airpods pro 2 gradient

AirPods Pro 3 Launch Now Just Months Away: Here's What We Know

Tuesday March 18, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Despite being released over two years ago, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 continue to dominate the wireless earbud market. However, with the AirPods Pro 3 expected to launch in 2025, anyone thinking of buying Apple's premium earbuds may be wondering if the next generation is worth holding out for. Apart from their audio and noise-canceling performance, which are generally regarded as excellent for...
Generic iOS 18

Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

Monday March 24, 2025 10:07 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the fourth betas. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Iridescent Search

Foldable iPhone Expected to Launch Next Year, Costing Around $2,000

Monday March 24, 2025 3:43 am PDT by
Apple will launch its long-rumored foldable iPhone next year with a ~$2,000 premium price tag attached, expects well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Gurman's comments on Apple's launch plans for its first foldable device appeared in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter. Earlier this month, the reporter said Apple's foldable iPhone could be arriving "as early as 2026,"...
Windows Vista

Apple Might Be Having Its Windows Vista Moment, Says Analyst

Thursday March 20, 2025 6:52 am PDT by
Is Apple experiencing a "Vista-like drift into systemically poor execution?" That was a question posed by well-known technology analyst Benedict Evans, in a recent blog post covering Apple's innovation and execution, or seemingly lack thereof as of late. He is referring to Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, which was widely criticized when it launched in 2007 due to software bugs,...

Top Rated Comments

Luap Avatar
64 months ago
"Unreal" Engine, but no new Unreal Tournament? Its been like, 12 years! ?
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
acastic Avatar
64 months ago

I've yet to meet the 8 gamers who play on macOS... I assume most have a console or gaming PC.
I'm one of them! I enjoy Tomb Raider, Civ 6, Endless Legend, Diablo 3, Warcraft 3 Reforged, Starcraft 2, Borderlands 1-3, Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, XCOM 2, and Company of Heroes 2 among others. Plenty to play on my 16" Macbook Pro :)

That being said, I wish Apple would actually care about Mac OS gaming. It's really a shame that they don't.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Internet Enzyme Avatar
64 months ago

I've yet to meet the 8 gamers who play on macOS... I assume most have a console or gaming PC.
Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Terraria, and Hotline Miami all still work on Catalina, not even to mention the whole Apple Arcade library. Granted, these aren’t AAA games, but they do exist and have a decent fan base on macOS
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
sublunar Avatar
64 months ago
While this is great news for games, I'm looking more close to see how this is used in film and TV show production - the Mandalorian is an example of what can be done.
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mattopotamus Avatar
64 months ago

Welp, lets see how well it looks and runs when it’s running a REAL video game. Like where there’s guns, explosions, stats, achievement tracking, AI, sprinting, jumping and the other 99 players that you’re playing online with. Along with 100+ GBs of maps, characters and engine that has to be QAed and maintained. Most video games consist of more than just pacing through a canyon. I bet in several years when Unreal 6 is released, we still won’t have any released games that look and run this well.

It looks great, but video games never end up looking as good as they do on these “first look” trailers when you actually play it on your TV in your bedroom.
At least it was actual gameplay compared to the joke Microsoft put on.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MrUNIMOG Avatar
64 months ago

Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Terraria, and Hotline Miami all still work on Catalina, not even to mention the whole Apple Arcade library. Granted, these aren’t AAA games, but they do exist and have a decent fan base on macOS
Well, there’s like a thousand games that work on Catalina. And lots of AAA.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)