Happy 2026! I hope this year brings you all joy and inspiration.
I wanted to take a moment to update you on the 2025 Epic MegaJam and the Mega Stack “O” Jam. First off, thank you for your incredible patience during this time. We’ve received a truly remarkable number of creative entries for the 2025 Epic MegaJam, which has made the judging process take a bit longer than we anticipated. We appreciate your understanding, as we want to ensure that every entry is judged fairly, transparently, and without bias.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be shining a spotlight on even more amazing entries in our News and Community Spotlight segments and on the forums, so be sure to keep an eye out for some inspiring showcases and updates!
We’re currently aiming to finalize the selection of finalists by the end of January. Once we announce the finalists on an upcoming Inside Unreal as well as announcement blog and sizzle in early February, we’ll begin to reach out to them to start the prize fulfillment process.
As for the Mega Stack “O” Jam, the blog and sizzle will be published in the coming weeks, and prize fulfilment is already underway. We’ll be reaching out to update the finalists on the progress.
Thank you once again for your patience and enthusiasm! We can’t wait to celebrate all the amazing talent in our community.
Once the judging has reached a point of almost-completion so that we know we can meet the date, we’ll announce the date publicly both here and on the launcher so folks won’t miss it!
While this is good news, I can’t help but be a little upset. You see when you stated that you would be notifying winners on Dec 14th in your contest rules, this would lead most to believe that the judging would be completed by that date. I completely understand, and appreciate, the fact that there were a ton of entries, and therefore the judging process is taking a little longer than you expected. However, when there was zero communication from Epic to all of us, I could only go off of the only information provided. I was trying to wait to update my UEFN submission, but since an update that came out around the Fortnite Chapter 7 release caused the lighting to be extremely dark and pretty much unplayable, and since my game was already published in order to be submitted to the Mega Jam, I assumed I would be ok to update. So I did. I truly hope that the update won’t affect my chances, especially since there was a gross lack of communication on your end.
I completely understand the frustration with the lack of communication about the initial suggested announcement date. All the entries had been played, and notes had been taken, but this is just an element of the judging process. Rest assured that having updated after the previous date will not affect your entry. The part of the judging process taking longer than expected is deliberation and narrowing down potential finalists based on the previous judging phases.
I don’t know how everyone is thinking, but hey, let’s be polite and social okay? There are 500 games to play and points to consider. Of course epic will not dedicate a team of hundreds to do that, only a few of the devs dedicate their time, a small portion in a day to work on judging, and they are trying to make the judge as fair as possible. So please have some compassion with them. They’re people too afterall, not a sorting and rating machines.
As noted in the initial update, we’ll be announcing the finalists during a dedicated Inside Unreal. This is still aimed to take place in February. If this changes, we will provide another update on progress.
For future jams I definitely see this issue persisting and likely causing a sharp decline in participation this year. October end date to now February to judge a game jam is unheard of for any jam. I really think the true nature of a jam was missed here. It’s unfortunate that it’s been decided this was very backburner priority. During the hype up there were no indications of this being an issue. Even after the jam ended there was very little communication until months later. Have there been any revisions and resolutions on how Epic decides to handle jams going forward? This current process will make Unreal Jams dead in the water.
I share the same frustration, but In defense of employees of Epic Games, a lot of people were laid off, I assume thats why Epic Megajam 2024 couldn’t happen. Even though the results are extremely delayed, at least we had Megajam 2025 and it was an awesome experience
Better to have an extremely big delay of results than no MegaJam at all
We’re thrilled to share some fantastic news! Mark your calendars for March 12th at 2 PM ET, when we will announce the winners of the 2025 Epic MegaJam during a special episode of Inside Unreal. Stay tuned for the official announcement—we can’t wait to celebrate with you!
We’d also like to take a moment to address some of the feedback regarding the judging timeline. We are committed to ensuring a fair and thorough judging process, which is why we include multiple industry specialists on our panel. Occasionally, coordinating schedules can take longer than anticipated. Additionally, we’ve listened to your requests for more opportunities to showcase entries, which is a priority we’ve worked hard to incorporate into this event, which contributed to the extended timeline, but we believe it’s worth it!
Looking ahead, especially with the exciting plans for 2026, we will focus on streamlining the judging process to achieve a quicker turnaround.
Every event gives us valuable insights into what works and where we can improve. Our goal is to make each event even more enjoyable for you, our incredible community, who make these gatherings so special! Thank you for your support and enthusiasm!
