Hi everyone 👋,
A recent survey for UEFN revealed what could possibly replace Blueprints programming for Unreal Engine 6.
Before we dive into UE6 check out this amazing first game created by user Severe-Ad171
Always incredible to see how following a tutorial can kick start a career creating in Unreal!
Now time to talk about Unreal Engine 6 but first we have to learn the development cycle of the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). UEFN is another version of Unreal used to create Fortnite maps and Epic is using UEFN to test new features for UE6. For example in UEFN is Verse, which is a language created by Epic Games specifically for programming multiplayer games, and Scene Graph, which is a new way to represent Unreal’s objects and components.
Both Verse and Scene Graph are currently being beta tested in UEFN for use eventually in UE6. This is most likely why UEFN does not have Blueprint programming, because Epic is planning on replacing Blueprints with a visual interface for Verse that allows users to create Verse code without coding. The community has been calling this next generation of Blueprints “Visual Verse“.
I always assumed that visual verse would be similar to Blueprints for two reasons, integration with other parts of the engine and backwards compatibility.
The Blueprint graph interface is so ingrained in other parts of the engine that it only made sense to continue the same node based controls. Also with a node based system it can support backwards compatibility with UE5 Blueprints. It can be a one time upgrade from Blueprints to Visual Verse similar to when Unreal transitioned from its old particle system called Cascade to Niagara. Of course the upgrade process wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be a start so we wouldn’t have to recreate all of our programming logic.
Well we finally get a glimpse into what could be Visual Verse. In a recent survey to UEFN creators Epic asked what version of Verse they prefer, giving 2 options:
Honestly it is suprising that Epic Games would even consider Scratch as an alternative to Blueprints. The only difference with this compared to coding in Verse is that it is slightly easier to read. In contrast, using nodes is a completely different, more visual way of thinking about programming. If Visual Verse ends up resembling Scratch, there’s little reason to use it at all - you might as well just write the code directly.
Matt Workman shares similar sentiment on his show This Week in Unreal I recommend checking it out.
Scratch is a visual interface created for kids. It was made to introduce them to coding without having to worry about syntax errors. It is not meant to be used in full production. Meanwhile node based interfaces have a proven track record in the 3D industry and is standard.
This survey should go out to the entire Unreal Engine community, not just UEFN developers. The UEFN demographic is mostly teenagers - most of them will pick Scratch because they are familiar with it from school. This group should not determine the future for all Unreal developers because they are not game developers.
I believe that removing Blueprints in UE6 and not giving us a node based alternative would be disatrous for the Unreal community and would overshadow any other new features for UE6. Lets hope Epic Games did this survey as a test and are not actually considering replacing Blueprints with Scratch.
That is all for this week stay tune for next time!
Zach Hunter
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