Systemic Shader Reduction: How We Cut Fortnite’s Shaders by 68% | Unreal Fest Chicago 2026

Watch this session recorded at Unreal Fest Chicago 2026 and discover how the Unreal Engine team and the Fortnite Tech Art team collaborated to reduce Fortnite’s shader count by 68%. The talk outlines the key sources of shader and material bloat and explains why the problem exists in the first place. As well as diving into the UE 5.8 engine optimizations that will reduce your project's shader footprint, we provide an overview of Fortnite’s material architecture, analyze how permutation growth became a problem, and explain the guiding principles behind the cleanup effort. You will come away with practical strategies and lessons learned for reducing material and shader permutations in your own projects. Find out more about game development in Unreal Engine here: unrealengine.com/uses/games #Fortnite, #GameDevelopment, #UnrealEngine, #UE 5.8, #UnrealFestChicago2026, #Shaders