Unity demonstrates ‘an Unreal character running through a Unity world’ for the first time

Unity has demonstrated a Unity Engine game running inside of an Unreal Engine game, marking a step in the direction of Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney’s vision for an interconnected, interoperable gaming ecosystem.

The demonstration took place at the Unite Seoul keynote, where Unity also announced the next version of its game engine this week. Unity’s goal with the project, in partnership with Epic, is to allow Unity developers to publish their games in Fortnite.

“You will see, for the first time, a Unity game rendering natively in Unreal Engine,” said Unity senior director of technical product management James Stone as he launched the demo. “Now this is not live in Fortnite yet, but it shows what’s possible for a shared foundation.

“What you’re seeing here is a game simulated in Unity, rendered with Unreal. Now, that’s not video streamed, no smoke and mirrors. This is all real time. But it’s not just rendering. Watch the avatar. That’s an Unreal character running through a Unity world. That’s physics, lighting, input, all of it synchronized between engines.”

“Connect ALL the engines!” Sweeney exclaimed on social media in response to the demo.

The Unity partnership represents one of many avenues through which Sweeney and Epic are pursuing a future that connects content, economies, and social features across platforms and games—”the metaverse,” for short. Sweeney discussed the effort in a recent conversation with PC Gamer, saying that the industry “should come to the realization that the value of connecting is higher for everybody than remaining separate.”

Unity’s new Fortnite integration will be available in early access in 2027. Unity 7, the next version of the engine, is also coming next year. Unity 7 promises new rendering, monetization, and collaboration features, as well as a protocol for connecting generative AI coding agents.