Unreal Engine 5.6 Boosts FPS by 35% and Adds Full MetaHuman Tools

Epic Games has officially released Unreal Engine 5.6, a major update to its real-time 3D development platform. According to Epic, this version is designed to help developers build high-fidelity, large-scale open worlds that run at 60 frames per second on current-generation consoles and PCs. Alongside performance upgrades, the release introduces extensive improvements to animation tools, procedural generation, rigging, MetaHuman creation, and cinematic workflows.

Independent benchmarks from MxBenchmarkPC confirm measurable performance gains over Unreal Engine 5.4. In tests using the Paris–Fontaine Saint-Michel demo created by Scans Factory, Unreal Engine 5.6 showed a 35% frame rate increase in CPU-limited scenarios and up to 25% in GPU-limited scenes. The demo was tested on the same system using an NVIDIA RTX 5080 graphics card and Intel Core i7-14700F processor. At 1440p with Hardware Lumen and Ultra settings enabled, frame rates increased from 67 FPS to 81 FPS—a 20% improvement. At 720p, where the scene is CPU-bound, frame rates rose from 92 FPS to 117 FPS, a 27% gain.

Unreal Engine 5.6 introduces updates to Lumen Global Illumination and Hardware Ray Tracing (HWRT) systems, which effectively eliminate key CPU bottlenecks while preserving shadow quality and geometric accuracy. According to the benchmark results, frame times were more consistent in Unreal Engine 5.6 compared to 5.4, resulting in smoother overall performance. There was a slight increase in power consumption on the RTX 5080, but this was offset by the improved rendering stability.

The Fast Geometry Streaming Plugin, currently in experimental status, is included in Unreal Engine 5.6 and supports streaming large amounts of immutable static geometry at runtime. This is complemented by the asynchronous creation and destruction of physics states, which contributes to overall improvements in content streaming. Updated device profiles tailored for 60 FPS on modern consoles and desktop systems help developers meet performance targets with reduced setup time.

In terms of animation, Unreal Engine 5.6 includes what Epic describes as its largest update yet to in-editor animation tools. Motion Trails have been redesigned for visual editing directly in the viewport. Available styles include Dashed, Time-based, and Heat/Speed, with features like pinning, offsets, and space adjustments now supported. The Curve Editor has also been updated, featuring embedded Tween Tools, a new Lattice tool, and Smart Key snapping. Hotkeys can now be used to indirectly control sliders, and users can switch between different slider types and toggle Overshoot mode.

The Sequencer tool has received several upgrades. Developers can now use a new Sequencer Navigation Tool to manage complex hierarchies. Audio Scrubbing has been improved to allow real-time synchronization of animation and dialogue. Experimental functionality allows sequences to scale relatively based on localized audio input, aiding in multilingual production.

Rigging tools in Unreal Engine 5.6 now include experimental in-editor sculpting of morph targets through the Skeletal Mesh Editor, leveraging Unreal’s modeling tools. The release also adds Control Rig Physics, an experimental feature that supports procedural physics-based motion for character rigs. An experimental ragdoll physics system is now embedded directly within the Control Rig to create responsive, lifelike animations.

MetaHuman Creator is fully integrated into Unreal Engine, so developers can now create a wider variety of body shapes in addition to facial features. Much has come with this side of the update: A new Unreal Outfit asset allows automatic resizing of character outfits, the MetaHuman database has been expanded with additional real-world scan data for both faces and bodies, and MetaHuman Animator now supports real-time capture using common webcams, various smartphone models, and audio-only input.

Not to mention, the updated Unreal Engine EULA now permits MetaHumans to be used in any engine or creative software, and the expanded ecosystem includes new plugins for digital content creation tools (DCCs) and integration with the Fab marketplace. The capabilities, interestingly, have potential applications beyond traditional gaming—ranging from digital twins in e-commerce to interactive avatars in platforms as varied as social media and online casinos.

The Unreal Engine editor itself has also been updated. The redesigned Content Browser includes improved asset viewing, smooth thumbnail resizing, and support for both horizontal and vertical orientations. The Viewport Toolbar now includes dynamically resizing section menus and dedicated controls for Selection and Modeling modes. Its appearance is now consistent across all Asset Editors.

In terms of workflow, Unreal Engine 5.6 includes a redesigned Project Launcher UI (Beta), intended to make it easier to manage device launch profiles and configuration selections for build, cook, and deployment processes. Zen Streaming, now in Beta, reduces iteration times by eliminating the need for full packaged builds and install steps. The new Incremental Cook feature (Experimental) analyzes asset changes and only cooks updated assets, reducing iteration time on target platforms.

For worldbuilding, Epic has updated the PCG (Procedural Content Generation) framework with multithreading support, which enables better performance in large-scale environments by distributing workloads across CPU cores. A new Node Graph UX (Beta) includes inline constants and node filtering. A 3D viewport (Beta) lets users preview points, textures, and meshes. Plus, Biome creation is now supported by the PCG Biome Core v2 plugin (Experimental), which introduces per-biome blending and biome layering.

GPU performance improvements for procedural content tools are also in Beta; they aim to reduce CPU overhead and improve runtime instancing in complex scenes. This is intended to support smoother GPU-based spawning and more responsive interaction during scene composition.

Performance capture workflows have also expanded. Mocap Manager (Experimental) is now integrated into the Unreal Editor and supports end-to-end management of performance capture assets, including stage setup and Live Link data previewing. Capture Manager (Experimental) now integrates with Live Link Hub for improved facial performance capture from mobile devices, video files, and stereo head-mounted cameras. MetaHuman takes can be imported and distributed more efficiently across the Unreal and MetaHuman ecosystem.

Unreal Engine 5.6 also introduces the Cinematic Assembly Toolset (CAT) (Experimental), which helps manage shot pipelines using swappable project configurations, reusable cinematic templates, and customizable naming tokens. A new Quick Render (Beta) feature enables the rendering of stills or sequences from the viewport to disk using Movie Render Graph settings.

Games such as The Witcher 4 have already been previewed running on Unreal Engine 5, including in tech demos by CD PROJEKT RED. Additional games in development using Unreal Engine 5 include Mafia: The Old Country, Borderlands 4, and The Outer Worlds 2. Though these titles have not officially confirmed the adoption of Unreal Engine 5.6, the release’s improvements in stability, rendering performance, and developer productivity are positioned to support major upcoming projects.

Full release notes for Unreal Engine 5.6 are available through Epic Games. The update is now live for download.

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