Lex Fridman Podcast
#467 – Tim Sweeney: Fortnite, Unreal Engine, and the Future of Gaming
30 Apr 2025
Tim Sweeney is a legendary video game programmer, founder and CEO of Epic Games that created the Unreal Engine, Fortnite, Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, and many other groundbreaking and influential video games. Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep467-sc See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc. Transcript: https://lexfridman.com/tim-sweeney-transcript CONTACT LEX: Feedback - give feedback to Lex: https://lexfridman.com/survey AMA - submit questions, videos or call-in: https://lexfridman.com/ama Hiring - join our team: https://lexfridman.com/hiring Other - other ways to get in touch: https://lexfridman.com/contact EPISODE LINKS: Tim's X: https://x.com/timsweeneyepic Epic Games: https://epicgames.com/ SPONSORS: To support this podcast, check out our sponsors & get discounts: Notion: Note-taking and team collaboration. Go to https://notion.com/lex MasterClass: Online classes from world-class experts. Go to https://masterclass.com/lexpod Shopify: Sell stuff online. Go to https://shopify.com/lex AG1: All-in-one daily nutrition drink. Go to https://drinkag1.com/lex LMNT: Zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix. Go to https://drinkLMNT.com/lex OUTLINE: (00:00) - Introduction (08:25) - 10,000 hours programming (11:42) - Advice for young programmers (19:54) - Video games in the 80s and 90s (22:02) - Epic Games origin story (34:40) - Indie game development (40:34) - Unreal Engine (1:06:30) - Technical details of Unreal Engine (1:11:23) - Constructive solid geometry (1:17:21) - Dynamic lighting (1:21:51) - Volumetric fog (1:25:19) - John Carmack (1:27:05) - Evolution of Unreal Engine (1:33:21) - Unreal Engine 5 (1:44:32) - Creating realistic humans (1:53:41) - Lumen global illumination (1:58:11) - Movies (2:12:53) - Simulating reality (2:25:08) - Metaverse (2:27:44) - Fortnite (2:31:40) - Scaling (2:47:04) - Game economies (2:48:33) - Standardizing the Metaverse (2:56:46) - Verse programming language (3:18:19) - Concurrency (3:25:56) - Unreal Engine 6 (3:30:34) - Indie game developers (3:33:32) - Apple (3:48:12) - Epic Games Store (4:11:03) - Future of gaming (4:17:03) - Greatest games ever made (4:22:39) - GTA 6 and Rockstar Games (4:25:58) - Hope for the future PODCAST LINKS: - Podcast Website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast - Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr - Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 - RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ - Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 - Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/lexclips SOCIAL LINKS: - X: https://x.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://instagram.com/lexfridman - TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://facebook.com/lexfridman - Patreon: https://patreon.com/lexfridman - Telegram: https://t.me/lexfridman - Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman
Full Episode
The following is a conversation with Tim Sweeney, a legendary video game programmer, founder and CEO of Epic Games that created many incredible games and technologies, including the Unreal Engine and Fortnite, which both revolutionized the video game industry and the experience of playing and creating video games. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor.
Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got Notion for AI-fueled note-taking, Masterclass for learning, Shopify for selling stuff, AG1 for nutrition, and Element for electrolytes. Choose wisely, my friends. I'm doing these ad reads all in one place. So hopefully that makes it easy for you to skip them if you don't want to listen to them.
But I do try to make them interesting and personal, often related to stuff I'm reading or thinking about. But if you do skip them, please still check out the sponsors. Sign up, get their stuff. I enjoy it. Maybe you will too. Also, if you want to get in touch with me, for whatever reason, go to lexfreeman.com contact.
There you can fill out a survey, which gives me feedback, or you can submit questions for an AMA, or if you want to work with us, you can apply, or if you just want to grab a coffee somewhere in the middle of nowhere as I travel the world. All right, now on to the full address. Let's go. This episode is brought to you by Notion, a note-taking and team collaboration tool.
Obviously, we talk a lot with Tim Sweeney in this episode about the incorporation of sort of AI-like tools semi-autonomous, human-in-a-loop type technology in the creative process, in computer graphics process, in lighting the scene, in lighting the human face, in bringing object in these worlds to life. I think it's true that a lot of that is ultimately about creating beautiful worlds.
But I think the deeper thing in video games, in movies, is storytelling. I really think it boils down back to text. I generate, I don't know how many pages, probably 10 plus pages of notes a day. A lot. I'm a very bullet point, nested bullet points guy.
And a lot of that I use Notion for, and they incorporate AI really, really well into the note-taking process, into the team collaboration process, project management process. Really nice. Try Notion AI for free when you go to notion.com. That's all lowercase, notion.com. To try the power of Notion AI today.
This episode is also brought to you by a masterclass, where you can watch over 200 classes from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines. I watch countless of their courses in full, and sometimes I do partial courses just if a topic really grabs me. And it's not always about the information conveyed. It's the implicit, the unstated, just the aura of mastery.
Because these are not just teachers or instructors. These are masters of their craft. Many of the folks that have Masterclass I've interviewed, And it is a very fundamentally different thing. I think both are very useful. I think of a masterclass as a kind of concise, crisp preview of this human being's mind.
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