Unreal Engine is Getting Rid of Its Most Popular Feature, and Devs Are Divided

One of the world's most popular creation tools, Unreal Engine, is currently at the mechanics shop getting a host of tune-ups and new parts, as the developers gear up to launch UE6 into early-access, but developers are divided over some of the changes being made.

The main purpose of UE6 is to bring together Unreal Engine and Unreal Editor for Fortnite into one package, while a brand-new gameplay framework called Scene Graph is also being introduced, which was designed in their new programming model, Verse, taking the place of Blueprints.

Unreal Engine 6 is the Beginning of the End for Blueprints

Blueprints is the visual scripting tool used in UE4 and UE5 that allows creators to make games without having to learn traditional coding languages such as C++, and has proven to be a great starting point for aspiring game developers.

While Blueprints definitely has its upsides, the Unreal Engine team says they strongly believe Verse is the better option for both new and experienced programmers, stating, "Verse will become a more powerful and capable way to create game logic."

Unreal Engine posted on X early today to explain how the transition from Blueprints to Verse will take place, stating that Blueprints will still be supported in Early Access and the initial UE6 release, but will no longer receive improvements and will eventually be removed.

While UE6 may feel alien to some at first, the team at Unreal explains, "Verse draws ideas from functional, logic, and imperative languages, and should feel immediately familiar to anyone who has worked with languages like Python or C#. But it also has some unique features, aimed at solving the complexity and scaling problems of modern game development—starting with its unique software transactional memory model."

This is where the divide begins, as not everyone is happy about having to potentially learn a new coding language. Game developer, and X user @ZaliasFGC, says, "LLMs can't generate blueprints, so that's why you're getting rid of probably the best feature in Unreal that every other engine has been trying to replicate? I just don't understand this decision from a developer standpoint. It likely won't happen either, genAI isn't seeing 2027/8."

While some may be sad to see Blueprints fade out over time, others say Unreal Engine was long overdue for an upgrade. Beautiful Light game director Eric '@aherys' Rajot states, "I'm the only one happy to see blueprint dropped? It's garbage, only useful to iterate very small scripts. Not easier to learn than a scripting language. Garbage for extensibility/maintenance, garbage for readability. The only advantage is... this is shiny for beginners because it's less scary than a line of code."

The switch from Blueprints to Verse is a major one, but that's not all that's in store. Here's a breakdown of the three main changes coming in UE6:

• Switching from Blueprints to Verse.
• Content, code, and economies will be made portable and interoperable across games to encourage more developer collaboration.
• Adding AI integration features to be used as "creativity and productivity multipliers"

As far as portable content goes, Unreal states Fortnite Cosmetics will be their first proof point, and game creators will be able to use Fortnite outfits in the games they've created, but they'll also be able to build outfits in their own games that will work in Fortnite.

Unreal Engine 6 wants you to plug in the tedious tasks to your AI assistant and focus on the creative parts of the project that you love. This is a controversial topic in the gaming industry and the world in general, as artificial intelligence encroaches on every facet of human life, but Unreal Engine states, "For UE6, we see LLMs, generative AI models, and tools like Claude and Codex playing a central role in helping you build content faster while maintaining the creative control you need."