How does mobile development fit into the overall product strategy for Unreal Engine?

Thomas Convard, the director of technical product management, Unreal Engine, with Epic Games, explains why the mobile games sector is such an important part of its strategy for Unreal Engine - and gives insight into the company's plans for future developments.

Mobile development is a crucial part of Unreal Engine's product strategy. It underpins our first-party efforts - most notably Fortnite and Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) - where we continually battle-test mobile capabilities in real production environments. 

We then extend this expertise to our third-party developers, putting UE's production-proven capabilities in studios’ hands so they can develop high-fidelity experiences that scale efficiently across mobile, PC, and console. This strategic focus ensures that mobile is one of our highest priorities when developing the engine.

What benefits does Unreal Engine provide developers who are targeting mobile?

Unreal Engine provides significant benefits for mobile development through its powerful suite of tools—spanning animation, procedural content generation, and more - that streamline content creation across diverse gaming platforms. It’s also a proven cross-platform solution, enabling developers to target PC, console, and mobile.

This approach is tried-and-tested, having been used extensively in a successful, large-scale mobile title like Fortnite and other major cross-platform mobile titles including Infinity Nikki, Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, MONGIL: STAR DIVE, Carmen Sandiego, Delta Force: Hawk Ops, and more.

How does the Unreal Engine development team ensure that mobile features are production-ready for use?

We ensure mobile features are production-ready through a combination of internal and external validation. Internally, we have direct access to real-world data and feedback on our own titles - including Fortnite, where we battle-test features on a massive scale.

Externally, we’re in continuous dialogue with third-party developers to gather their feedback on how we can evolve the engine's mobile capabilities to meet industry needs. We also actively collect and monitor feedback on the Unreal Engine Public Roadmap. The balance of these approaches ensures features are both stress-tested and practically applicable.

How does Unreal Engine handle the wide range of devices present in the mobile market, and what should developers do to ensure their games run effectively across them?

Unreal Engine can be optimised to target a wide range of mobile devices through its scalability system and device profiles. The scalability system enables developers to define different quality levels for key rendering features.

Device profiles complement this by automatically mapping specific hardware characteristics to the appropriate scalability settings at runtime. The result is a consistent, optimised experience for different hardware tiers. We validate this approach internally on a range of real-world devices from all vendors.

When it comes to the current major trends in mobile gaming, what is Epic prioritising in terms of Unreal Engine development?

A key area for Unreal Engine is its integrated toolset: the goal is to provide a comprehensive, all-in-one suite of tools within the Unreal Editor covering world building, character creation, animation, and more. Building out this toolset will reduce the need for external software, keep the entire development process streamlined, and lower costs for developers.

Another major goal is to shorten iteration time. For example, the Mobile Previewer enables developers to quickly visualise how content on a PC would appear on a target mobile device, and recent work on faster deployment to target platforms significantly improves workflow efficiency.

As mobile hardware gets closer to console quality, how do you see the mobile games industry evolving?

The mobile games industry is moving toward higher-fidelity games, akin to console-level experiences, but with a regional split in adoption. In Eastern markets, where mobile is often the primary gaming platform, triple-A-style games are thriving.

In the West, where consoles are more dominant, high-production value mobile games are set to increase, but they will compete with already-strong casual and social titles.

Across all geographies, we expect user-generated content and robust social features to remain key drivers of engagement even as visual quality improves. With this in mind, our goal remains to empower developers with the right tools to create the best player experiences.

What can you share about the future direction UE is heading towards for developers targeting mobile?

High-end mobile devices now offer console-level performance, while low-end devices remain memory- and compute-constrained. This is inherently a cross-platform optimisation challenge - one that Unreal Engine is uniquely positioned to address.

By bringing high-fidelity and performance-driven tools, we’re striving to help developers navigate this technical challenge and build efficiently across this wide spectrum of devices. 

Beyond the engine itself, we want to support developers across Epic's broader ecosystem: for example, with Epic Online Services for essential backend features and the mobile Epic Games Store for alternative distribution channels and favourable developer terms. This approach supports both the creation and the distribution of mobile titles.

How easy is it for console developers to move into mobile using Unreal Engine and vice versa?

For an experienced Unreal Engine developer coming from a console background, the transition to mobile development is quite straightforward because the fundamental toolset, workflows, and programming language (C++/Blueprints) are the same. 

The primary difference lies in some of the technical requirements and constraints of mobile, such as lower-power GPUs or battery optimisation. Unreal Engine provides extensive built-in features and scalable rendering paths to manage these mobile-specific challenges. This enables the core development process to remain familiar while focusing on essential optimisations.

Where can people go to learn more about developing mobile games with Unreal Engine?

To learn more, check out the Unreal Engine website and our dedicated mobile documentation, or reach out to the UE team on the Epic Developer Community. Lastly, take a look at this playlist of on-demand mobile sessions from Unreal Fest and GDC.