Incompatibility Between Physics Control and Motion Matching in UE5.5

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on a character system in Unreal Engine 5.5 using Motion Matching from the Game Animation Sample. I wanted to add some Physics Control to simulate things like the head or arm reacting physically to the environment

The problem is : as soon as I activate Physics Control (for example using the “Create Controls and Body Modifiers from Limb Bones” node), Motion Matching breaks.
The bones affected by the Physics Control either freeze, snap to the world origin (0,0,0), or stop following the animation completely. The rest of the character still moves, but those specific parts become totally unstable or stuck.

If I disable the Physics Control, everything goes back to normal and Motion Matching works fine again.

I’ve tested different setups and double-checked my Blueprint logic. Everything seems clean. I also tried tweaking the physics parameters, but the issue persists.

So I was wondering:

  • Is this a known limitation or conflict between Physics Control and Motion Matching in UE5.5?
  • Has anyone managed to make them work together without issues?
  • Is Epic aware of this and planning a fix?

Thanks a lot for any help !

Update – [SOLVED]
I finally found the cause of the issue!

It wasn’t directly related to Physics Control itself, but rather to the Pre Character Movement Component (PreCMC) used by the Motion Matching system (GASP).
By default, the PreCMC was ticking in the During Physics tick group — and that was the problem.

just set the Tick Group of the PreCMC component to Pre Physics.
Once I did that, the physics behaved as expected, and the Motion Matching system stayed functional.

Huge thanks to @arkmithcreations, who pointed me in the right direction in a YouTube comment. Hopefully this helps others struggling with the same incompatibility!