Epic Games will remove Blueprints, Actors and the C++ Gameplay Framework from Unreal Engine 6 (UE6), moving gameplay programming to its own Verse language. CEO Tim Sweeney revealed the change at Unreal Fest Tokyo 2026 on November 3rd.
The plan was shown at the opening keynote and a joint press briefing in Ariake, Tokyo, according to Japanese developer outlet Game Makers, which reported from the event. Keynote slides marked all three systems as "Remove" rather than deprecated. Sweeney called it a "painful change" and apologised to the community, noting that many developers around the world love Blueprints.
From deprecated to removed
The decision reverses the plan Epic set out when it detailed UE6 at Unreal Fest Chicago in June. At the time, Actors and Blueprints were set to stay in the first version of UE6 and be phased out gradually. Now they will be gone from the start of Early Access, which is planned for the end of 2027.
In UE6, game logic will be written in Verse, the programming language Epic has been running in Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). Scenes will be built with Scene Graph, which swaps Actors for "entities" made of components, alongside new Verse Gameplay APIs and building through MCP (Model Context Protocol) and Python. C++ will stay in the engine's lower layers, such as rendering and physics. Sweeney said the move improves productivity and makes content easier to carry between projects.
Sweeney tied the change to AI. He said AI tools have raised productivity inside Epic by 1.5 to four times in programming, debugging and level design. Epic will offer AI-assisted tools to convert Blueprints and C++ gameplay code to Verse, though their format has not been decided. He added that Epic is feeling the pain first, with Fortnite moving thousands of Blueprints and its remaining C++ gameplay code to Verse.
Asked on X (formerly Twitter) which AI models know Verse, Sweeney replied: "The currently available leading edge models saw little Verse organically during training, but that will change by January."
What happens to UE5 projects
Projects already in production on Unreal Engine 5 can stay on the UE5 line. Epic confirmed on X that Unreal Engine 5.9 will arrive in Preview next week with improved AI workflows, web as a target platform, and rendering and animation updates. At the keynote, Epic Games Japan head Takayuki Kawasaki urged developers interested in UE6 to try Verse and Scene Graph in UEFN first.
