Let me say, as a 15+ year Unreal Engine veteran who has continued to support the brand since the early days, UE5 releases are getting beyond unacceptable. The only UE 5 build that has been stable for the entire lifetime of UE5, has been UE 5.5. I want to continue to support new partners or developers, but this isn’t making it easier until Epic takes this more seriously, it has been beyond unpredictable and unstable and the continued lack of response regarding these builds doesn’t instill any hope. At least if the community manager or team responded more, myself and others would absolutely feel that to some degree but at least it’s something. I’m genuinely shocked it’s just crickets and partners quite literally waiting in the wind hoping for the best.
I’ve been on-board since UE3 and this continues to be a problem but the bigger the company has gotten, it feels like the more careless in the face of releasing a build with more features vs. stability. Heck, this build was supposed to be mainly focused on new optimizations, yet it broke it this much. I would’ve respected more that for UnrealFest, Epic releases the preview for 5.6. Under no circumstances, should management release this in its current state and I’m surprised it was.
I understand that you guys had a mandatory 2-week vacation, but the majority of the community had no clue about it and it would be incredibly helpful for others on the team to leave up a note for everyone, so they know of those weeks the company had you off. Most people do not know that so it would be helpful to put up some form of notification just in case.
5.6.0 was put out as “production-ready” release and I think most people can agree, this should’ve been held back a little bit to cook more. In my case, I can’t even get it to build on iOS from a Mac, and it somehow cannibalizes its own files making it impossible to use and is broken beyond belief and corrupts or locks certain files into that version. Not the greatest impression when the project is purely UMG and even that doesn’t build.
I love everything the team is doing but this is honestly one of the worst releases I’ve seen released in a long time as much as I hate to say it. I know it will get better, but you need the constructive criticism if this is going to get any better.
It would be amazing to see some of the team from community management, chime in just in case so we know what’s going on. Thanks!