Noah Romsdal Hallundbæk Sørensen
Epic Games is pushing back hard against criticism of Unreal Engine CGI.
Fortnite creator Epic Games has responded to criticism that its Unreal Engine is responsible for a decline in modern movie visual effects.
The rebuttal comes after comments from a high-profile Hollywood director reignited debate over how films now look.
The exchange has drawn attention because both sides are deeply connected to one of cinema’s most celebrated CGI achievements from the 2000s.
A changing landscape
In an interview with ButWhyTho.net, Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski was asked why he felt visual effects had worsened over the past 15 years.
He compared current films with his own trilogy, which featured the widely praised digital character Davy Jones.
Verbinski pointed to Unreal Engine, a tool widely used in games and increasingly in film production, particularly for on-set visualization.
He argued that techniques and aesthetics from gaming had crossed into cinema in ways he viewed as harmful.
“I think the simplest answer is you’ve seen the Unreal gaming engine enter the visual effects landscape,” Verbinski said, describing what he sees as a shift toward a “gaming aesthetic” in movies.
Light and realism
Verbinski also raised concerns about lighting and realism, while acknowledging the industry’s move away from physical miniatures had been underway for years.
He suggested Unreal Engine struggled with how light interacts with surfaces such as skin.
“I just don’t think it takes light the same way,” he said. “I don’t think it fundamentally reacts to subsurface, scattering, and how light hits skin and reflects in the same way.”
According to Verbinski, this can lead to an “uncanny valley” effect in creature animation, worsened by automation used to save time.
Epic’s response
IGN contacted Epic Games for comment. The company responded through its VFX supervisor Pat Tubach, who joined Epic in 2022 after decades at Industrial Light & Magic.
“It’s inaccurate for anyone in the industry to claim that one tool is to blame for some erroneously perceived issues with the state of VFX and CGI,” Tubach told IGN. He said visual quality comes from artists rather than software.
Tubach added that Unreal Engine is mainly used for pre-visualization and virtual production, with limited use for final imagery.
He also noted that earlier generations of VFX artists lacked access to such advanced tools.
“I can guarantee that the artists working on big blockbuster VFX films like Pirates of the Caribbean 10-15 years ago could only dream about having a tool as powerful as Unreal Engine on their desks,” he said.
A shared history
Tubach’s response carries particular weight. According to IGN, he worked on all three original Pirates films, including The Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man’s Chest, and At World’s End.
That shared history highlights how debates over technology often reflect broader changes in scale, speed, and expectations across the film industry.
Sources: IGN Nordic, ButWhyTho
