Unreal Engine (UE), a powerful 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first debuted in 1998 with the first-person shooter Unreal. Written in C++, it has evolved far beyond its gaming origins, becoming a highly portable tool used across diverse game genres, and significantly adopted by the film and television industries on various desktop, mobile, console, and VR platforms. Over its generations, UE introduced major advancements, such as "Blueprints" visual scripting in Unreal Engine 4 (2014) and the groundbreaking Nanite and Lumen systems in the latest Unreal Engine 5, officially launched in April 2022. Epic Games offers the engine with a royalty model, charging 5% of revenues over US $1 million (waived for Epic Games Store exclusives), and notably transitioned from its original scripting language, UnrealScript (developed by founder Tim Sweeney), to C++ and Blueprints with UE4.