Short answer: on November 3, 2026, at Unreal Fest Tokyo, Epic said Unreal Engine 6 will remove Blueprints, Actors and the C++ Gameplay Framework. Gameplay moves to Verse and Scene Graph (entities and components). It changes the June plan, which kept Blueprints and Actors in early UE6 versions. UE6 Early Access is planned for the end of 2027. Your UE5 projects can stay on UE5, and UE 5.9 is coming.
What Epic announced in Tokyo
Tim Sweeney presented the change in the opening keynote and a press briefing. According to Game Makers, the Japanese outlet that reported from the event:
- The keynote slides marked Blueprints, Actors and the C++ Gameplay Framework as “Remove”, not “deprecated”.
- They will be gone from UE6 Early Access, not phased out later.
- C++ stays in the engine’s lower layers, such as rendering and physics. It won’t be used to write gameplay.
- Sweeney called it a “painful change” and apologised to the many developers who love Blueprints.
What changed since June
At Unreal Fest Chicago in June, Epic’s road to UE6 post said Actors and Blueprints would be in early versions of UE6 and be deprecated only when the new framework was mature enough.
| June plan (Chicago) | November plan (Tokyo) | |
|---|---|---|
| Blueprints in UE6 | Kept at first, deprecated later | Removed from Early Access |
| Actors | Kept at first, deprecated later | Removed, replaced by Scene Graph entities |
| C++ gameplay code | Not addressed | C++ Gameplay Framework removed |
| Conversion help | Conversion tools promised | AI-assisted conversion to Verse, format not decided |
| Early Access | End of 2027 | End of 2027 |
Why Epic says it’s doing this
Sweeney gave two reasons: productivity and portability. Verse and Scene Graph are what Epic now uses internally, and Epic reports that AI tools raised its own productivity 1.5 to 4 times in programming, debugging and level design. Those are Epic’s own numbers. Epic also wants code and content to move between games and engines, starting with Fortnite outfits.
Epic says it is taking the pain first. Fortnite is converting thousands of Blueprints and its remaining C++ gameplay code to Verse.
What replaces Blueprints and Actors
- Verse for game logic. It’s the language already used in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN).
- Scene Graph for building scenes. An entity holds components that give it data and behaviour, a bit like an Actor with components, but built from the ground up for Verse.
- Verse Gameplay APIs, plus MCP and Python so you can connect the AI models and tools of your choice.
What’s still unknown
- What the conversion tools will look like and how well they handle real projects.
- Whether there will be any visual scripting on top of Verse. Nothing has been announced.
- How C++ plugins and engine extensions will plug into the new framework.
We’ll update our UE6 posts as Epic publishes details.
What it means for you today
Nothing breaks today. Epic says projects in production on UE5 can stay on the UE5 line, and UE 5.9 enters Preview next week with AI workflow improvements, web as a target platform, and rendering and animation updates. Epic Games Japan’s advice to anyone interested in UE6 was to try Verse and Scene Graph in UEFN first.
FAQ
Is Blueprint removed from Unreal Engine 5? No. The change is for UE6. UE5 keeps Blueprints.
When does UE6 come out? Early Access is planned for the end of 2027, with the full release 12–18 months later, according to Epic’s June roadmap.
Is C++ gone from Unreal? No. The engine is still C++. What goes is the C++ Gameplay Framework, the classes you write gameplay with today.
Will my UE5 project open in UE6? Not as is. Epic plans AI-assisted tools to convert Blueprint and C++ gameplay code to Verse.
Related reading
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