Develop

Unreal Engine

Updated: Apr 17, 2026

Meta provides integrated support for Unreal Engine with the Meta XR plugin. The integration makes developing XR applications for Meta Quest headsets easy.

This section is your primary guide for targeting these headsets with Unreal Engine, and we provide cross-references for the Meta Quest Mobile SDK and PC SDK developer guides. In addition, you will find links to the Unreal Engine documentation supplied by Epic Games.

The Meta integration provides several Unreal Blueprints to make it easier to start developing using Unreal Engine. Blueprints provide a visual programming system. Here is a portion of a Blueprint script that includes Meta-specific functions:

If you are still unfamiliar with Unreal Blueprints, Epic Games⁠ provides several videos and tutorials to help you get started. Before proceeding with this developer guide, you should have a basic working knowledge of Blueprints programming.

Unreal Engine Royalty Payment Program

As an added incentive to develop VR apps with Unreal Engine, Meta pays royalties for any VR app developed using the Unreal Engine and sold through the Meta Horizon Store, up to $5,000,000 USD in application revenue. You must opt in through your Developer Dashboard to participate in this program. Read more on the Unreal Engine Royalty Payment Program page.

Sections in this Guide

We have included the following sections in this guide for Unreal Engine development.

Get Started

See one of these walk-through topics to get you started:

Meta Quest: Quick Start: Contains steps to help you get started developing Unreal applications for the Meta Quest.

PC-VR: Quick Start: Contains steps to help you get started developing Unreal applications for PC-VR applications.

Integration and Tools

This section contains an overview of release versions and the settings and tools provided in the Meta integration with Unreal Engine.

Integration Details - Settings and Development Tools

Unreal Version Compatibility Reference: This section provides version compatibility information for Unreal Engine, the OVRPlugin, and other related SDKs.

Unreal for VR Development Basics: This section reviews the basics for developing Meta applications in Unreal.

Plugin Settings: This section reviews the configuration options for the OVRPlugin with links to more information.

Performance Settings: This section reviews the performance settings options for the OVRPlugin.

Build and Deploy Topics

Meta Quest: Compile and Package Apps: Reviews the basics for developing VR applications in Unreal.

Reduce App Deploy Time During Development: Describes how to enable the Deploy compiled .so directly to device option to skip APK packaging and reduce deployment time during development.

Configure Your App for Uploading to Developer Dashboard: Describes how to configure your Unreal app settings for uploading to the Developer Dashboard.

Improve App Compile Time With FASTBuild: Describes how to set up and configure FASTBuild for distributed compilation to reduce compile times for large projects.

Building Unreal Engine from Source: Describes how to download, compile, and launch Unreal Engine from the GitHub repository.

Hand Tracking and Controllers

To handle input events generated by Meta Quest Touch controllers and through hand tracking, see:

Input: Hand Tracking and Controllers: Provides general guidance for handling controller input events.

Hand Tracking Overview: Provides an overview of hand tracking capabilities in Unreal Engine, including gesture recognition and hand skeletal mesh access.

Mapping Controller Input to Blueprint Events: Provides a complete Blueprint reference for all controller input events.

Passthrough

To use the physical environment as part of your application, see:

Passthrough API Overview: Describes how to display the physical environment through the headset cameras in your Unreal application using the Passthrough API.

Depth API

To use depth information for real-world occlusion in mixed reality applications, see:

Depth API Overview: Describes the Depth API, which provides real-time depth maps so virtual objects can be occluded by real-world surfaces in mixed reality applications.

Scene Understanding

To detect and respond to real-world objects and surfaces, see:

Scene Overview: Describes how to use the Scene API to detect and respond to real-world surfaces and objects in your Unreal application.

Mixed Reality Utility Kit Overview: Describes the Mixed Reality Utility Kit (MRUK), which provides utilities for building mixed reality applications using scene data.

Spatial Anchors and Colocation

To persist virtual object positions and share spatial data across devices, see:

Spatial Anchors Overview: Describes how to create and use spatial anchors to persist the position of virtual objects across sessions.

Colocation Discovery: Describes how to advertise and discover colocation sessions, enabling multiple headsets in the same physical space to share a coordinate system.

Movement SDK

To add body animation and face and eye expression tracking to your application, see:

Movement SDK for Unreal: Describes the Movement SDK, which enables body, face, and eye tracking in Unreal applications.

Rendering

To enhance rendering quality and optimize the frame rendering rate, see:

Rendering: Describes important rendering options and tools that can significantly improve your application, including supported graphics APIs and target frame rates.

Fixed Foveated Rendering: Describes Fixed Foveated Rendering, a rendering technique for improving performance, and how to enable it in your applications for Quest.

Eye Tracked Foveated Rendering: Describes Eye-tracked Foveated Rendering, a rendering technique for improving performance, and how to enable it in your applications for Meta Quest headsets.

Testing and Performance Analysis: Describes how to optimize Meta Quest applications.

PC-VR: Testing and Performance Analysis: This section describes how to optimize PC-VR applications.

Material shader statistics with Adreno Offline Compiler: Describes how to retrieve material shader statistics with Adreno Offline Compiler.

User Experience

To provide the best possible user experience, see:

User Experience: Describes Meta Horizon OS features that improve the user experience of your applications, including splash screens, keyboard overlays, and mixed reality capture.

Splash Screen: Describes how to use the splash screen during application load time and Unreal Engine Level transition times.

Social Applications and Revenue: This section overviews the Meta Horizon platform’s social and revenue functions, with links to the Meta Horizon platform SDK documentation.

Mixed Reality Capture: Describes how to incorporate live video feeds into your Unreal applications.

Platform Solutions

The Meta Horizon platform supports security, community, revenue, and engagement, including entitlement checking, matchmaking, destinations and group presence, in-app purchase, VoIP, and cloud saves.

Audio for Unreal Apps

Audio is critical for creating a persuasive VR experience. The audio guide introduces tools to create an immersive audio experience with Unreal Engine apps. This guide includes spatialization plugins for Unreal Engine and other audio editing tools commonly used with Unreal, including Audiokinetic Wwise and FMOD Studio. In addition, it provides details on Lipsync and other audio resources.