Unreal Engine is the most advanced real-time 3D creation tool. Since its launch in 2022, it has undergone several major updates. In 2025, Epic Games demonstrated the power of Unreal Engine 5.6, which launched during the tech demo for The Witcher 4 at Unreal Fest Orlando.
Unreal Engine’s applications have expanded far outside of gaming. Earlier this year, Epic Games partnered with SAS and Georgia-Pacific to develop digital twins for manufacturing, which is an industry that generates a massive amount of data.
Recently, SAS used Epic Games’ RealityScan app to capture and import photorealistic renderings into UE5. “With SAS’ advanced analytics and Unreal Engine, GP created an amazing example for how a digital twin can create real-world value for businesses,” said Epic Games’ Bill Clifford, who is Unreal Engine’s vice president and general manager.
While we usually think of UE5 in terms of frame rates and Ray Tracing, it’s increasingly being used as an industrial sandbox. Most industries are stuck with fragmented data, but a digital twin acts as a 'what if' digital alternative to a physical layout, letting people analyze and play with potential improvements in a risk-free virtual setting before ever touching the real-world machinery.
Flight sim software Prepar3D® Fuse combines physics-based sim software and Blackshark.AI on a custom build of UE5. Using sensors, it simulates physically accurate weather, lighting and atmospherics. It’s both for mood and to simulate the exact conditions for a mission, down to the precise angle and intensity of the sun.
In the past, a virtual globe was simply a colorful three-dimensional (3D) model made up of many polygons. Lockheed Martin’s chief of innovation Adam Breed said developers can now apply unique properties like heat absorption or reflectivity to any part of the model. “You have a 3D road, but it’s not just a polygon. It’s a road that has a speed limit, made up of different types of materials. It has road signs and traffic lights,” said Breed.
Meanwhile, the AI-powered semiautomated forces engine uses entity-level simulation to generate realistic behaviors for individual personnel and brigade movements. A pilot doesn’t fly in a vacuum — they are one node in a massive, interconnected simulation.
Think of a real-time strategy game like Age of Empires, but instead of clicking on airborne units, you command an AI-driven wargame on a global terrain database. Developers are recreating the Earth with photorealistic accuracy.
While you may never get your hands on this UE5-powered flight sim, you should be glad it exists. The technology behind it — which is being funded with budgets that dwarf even the biggest AAA games — is paving the way for super-high-fidelity, large-scale open worlds.
Prepar3D is the only major flight sim developed by an actual aerospace company. Additionally, it’s always had roots in the gaming community. The first version was actually created with Microsoft Enterprise Simulation Platform source code, the same that Microsoft Flight Simulator used. Now, Fuse is on a custom UE5 build.
Users can generate complex mission scenarios, controlling thousands of ground units and simulating real-world civilian traffic patterns. A few decades ago, large-scale world rendering and complex AI deployment at this scale were considered impossible.
The leap from 8-bit NES games to realistic open worlds with path tracing and Deep Learning Super Sampling upscaling took roughly half a century. Lately, graphics improvements have felt marginal, or at least not as revolutionary as the transition from side-scrolling platformers to high-poly open worlds.
With Prepar3D Fuse, Unreal Engine 5 delivers that next-generation leap in visual fidelity gamers are looking for. The engine’s virtualized geometry and dynamic global illumination systems create highly detailed, realistic worlds that run smoothly at 60 frames per second.
The military’s need for hyper-realistic simulation could lead to core engine improvements, making video games feel like a novel, revolutionary experience, even for those who’ve spent their lives playing them.