Epic Games held its major annual conference, Unreal Fest, in Chicago this week. The company announced three things: updates to Unreal Engine (the software that powers most of its games), a professional tool called MetaHumans coming to Fortnite creators, and LEGO building blocks now available in Fortnite's creation tools.

These announcements are aimed at two groups: traditional video game developers and Fortnite content creators. If you've ever watched someone build and design custom Fortnite islands, those creators use Epic's tools. These updates are meant to make those tools more powerful.

What Are MetaHumans, and Why Do They Matter?

MetaHumans is a tool that creates realistic-looking digital people. Until now, it's been expensive and complicated — mostly used by major film studios, TV networks, and big game companies making blockbuster games.

Back in 2022, Epic used this tool to create a digital version of musician Aya Nakamura that performed inside Fortnite. That required a whole team of professionals working on it. Now, Epic is putting the same tool directly into Fortnite's creator platform. Regular creators can now make realistic digital characters without needing a huge budget or a team behind them.

LEGO Building Blocks for Fortnite

Epic also announced that LEGO elements are now built into Fortnite's creation tools. LEGO has worked with Fortnite since 2023, but now the LEGO pieces work like other building blocks in the system — you can drop them in and use them the same way you'd use any other creation tool. It's the same approach Epic uses for all the other assets and systems in its game engine.

Bringing Movie Techniques Into Games

Epic is also focused on something called virtual production — a filmmaking technique where scenes are rendered in real time by a computer, rather than filmed on location. The company has been experimenting with screening actual films inside Fortnite using this approach. Director J.J. Abrams was involved in one such project.

There's a real question about whether this becomes a common practice or stays mostly experimental. Fortnite has millions of players, so the potential audience is huge. But adapting movies to work inside a game engine is complicated technical work. Only time and actual usage will tell whether this becomes standard.

More Conferences Ahead

Epic is also holding another major Unreal Fest conference in Tokyo in November 2026, which the company says will be its largest Tokyo event ever. The company spreads its big announcements across two conferences (Chicago in June and Tokyo in November) rather than putting everything into one event.