Epic CEO Tim Sweeney blames game developers for poor Unreal Engine 5 performance

When Epic first showcased the power of its latest Unreal Engine 5 technology, many were left impressed by how detailed and cinematic games were about to look. From the groundbreaking Lumen and Nanite technology to advanced ray tracing and other innovations, Unreal Engine 5 quickly became the go-to platform for both small and large developers as the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and modern DLSS and neural rendering GeForce RTX-powered generation of gaming began.

3

Fast forward to 2025, and as we've seen several high-profile Unreal Engine 5-powered games make their way to PC and consoles, there has been a lot of criticism surrounding poor performance and optimization in a range of UE5 games, with issues like stuttering and low frame rate, no matter the GPU it's paired with.

Just to name a few examples, there's STALKER 2, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Black Myth: Wukong, Lords of the Fallen, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, Oblivion Remastered, and, more recently, Mafia: The Old Country and the Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater remake, with all titles releasing with notable and game-altering performance issues. And with all of the bad press, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has chimed in to point the finger at game developers.

This comes from a recent interview Tim Sweeney conducted with Korean outlet This is Game (translated by Clawsomegamer), in which he blames developers for not spending enough time optimizing games - specifically, for not optimizing throughout the entire process and not leaving it as the last step.

"The main cause is the order of development," Tim Sweeney states. "Many studios build for top-tier hardware first and leave optimization and low-spec testing for the end. Ideally, optimization should begin early - before full content build-out."

3

In his defence, Epic is aware of the issues surrounding Unreal Engine 5-powered games and is looking to make the optimization process easier for game developers dealing with a wide range of platforms. For example, a UE5 game could release on Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro, Nintendo Switch 2, and PCs powered by a wide range of GeForce RTX, Radeon RX, and Intel Arc graphics cards. This suggests that optimization should be considered from the outset. On the PC side, a lot of the criticism also surround upscaling tech like DLSS and FSR becoming necessary just to hit a stable 60 FPS.

"We're doing two things: strengthening engine support with more automated optimization across devices, and expanding developer education so 'optimize early' becomes standard practice," Tim Sweeney adds. "If needed, our engineers can step in. Game complexity is much higher than 10 years ago, so it's hard to solve purely at the engine level; engine makers and game teams need to collaborate. We're also bringing Fortnite optimization learnings into Unreal Engine, so titles run better on low-spec PCs."

Unreal Engine 5 isn't going anywhere, and it's set to power CD Projekt Red's upcoming The Witcher 4 and several other high-profile releases. However, with The Witcher 4 team already stating that Unreal Engine 5 wasn't quite ready for large open-world streaming when they began development on the title, upcoming updates like Unreal Engine 5.6 are promising improvements that should lead to better-performing games.