Epic releases Unreal Engine 5.7, moves MegaLights feature from experimental to beta
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Key points
- Epic has finally released Unreal Engine 5.7, improving the engine’s visual fidelity.
- An experimental feature, MegaLights, has also moved to beta.
- Nanite Foliage, a new geometry rendering system, is also available now.
On Nov. 12, 2025, Epic finally released Unreal Engine 5.7, improving the engine’s visual fidelity. The update brings MegaLights, a feature of the engine that was tagged as experimental, to beta, allowing developers to be more flexible regarding their lighting.
Additionally, the engine now supports directional lights, translucency, shadow casting for Niagara particles and more accurate shading and shadowing on hair. Epic said that developers can expect a much better performance, improved noise reduction and the reduced need for manual light optimizations.
The Procedural Content Generation framework is also ready for developers to use, allowing them to quickly populate environments, introduce natural variety and deliver more engaging game experiences in less time.
Additionally, Nanite Foliage, a new geometry rendering system, is also being introduced to the engine. Epic said that the system uses Nanite Voxels, which automatically and efficiently draw millions of tiny, overlapping elements that read as a solid mass at distance — such as tree canopies, pine needles, ground clutter and much more — at stable frame rates without cross fades, pops or the need to author LODs.
Epic Games also released a detailed patch note covering all of the changes that were implemented into the engine.
