Writing a New Audio Engine for UE4: Innovation Under Pressure

Gaming Audio & XR

Presenter:
Aaron McLeran, Epic Games

In this talk I will describe the technical design challenges and opportunities inherent in writing a new next-gen-capable audio engine for Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), a widely licensed game engine. I will present the prior state of the audio engine and analyze technical constraints and issues which guided API design choices and feature prioritization. I will then describe challenges we faced while testing for quality, stability and correctness and the process of launching a new audio engine within a regular release schedule of UE4 engine updates while not breaking licensees and backward compatibility. Finally, I will discuss the launch of the audio engine on Fortnite on 6 platforms without slowing down audio content production or interrupting an ambitious 2-week release cadence.