This isn’t an immediate need, but is something that is coming up in the discussions at work for whether or not we want to attempt to go with UE4 in a future project is the ability to debug on the target machine. Source debugging certainly functions as would be expected and (at least on the platforms I tested) remote log and console work great. What seems to be missing is debugging of script assets, specifically BPs and BTs which are fully functional in the editor, but don’t operate in remote sessions. I also don’t see such a feature on the roadmap. This would be most useful for things like UI where platform differences will exist, and we expect much of the logic to be implemented (hopefully) by artists and designers in BPs. And just in general, even in scripting, platform differences can manifest issues, and while printing strings for debug logging is possible, it’s hardly ideal, especially when the editor case is so nice.
You’re right — Unreal’s built-in Blueprint debugger works great in the editor, but it doesn’t extend to remote or packaged builds. In practice, debugging BP logic on target platforms usually falls back to logs or temporary debug UI.
I’ve been experimenting with a remote Blueprint debugging approach for packaged builds, where a running game connects back to the editor. Once connected you can set breakpoints on Blueprint nodes, step through execution, and inspect stack variables while the game is running on the target machine.
The goal is basically to bring something closer to the editor debugging workflow to standalone or packaged builds.
Here’s a short demo showing the idea:
