The Epic AI MegaJam 2026 officially begins today, November 12, and runs through November 15. Creators worldwide have four days to build a playable game in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) under the Director's Cut theme.
What happened?
Epic Games revealed the theme during the November 11 kickoff livestream: “Director's Cut — your vision, your specific edits and ultimately your final cut.” The idea encourages developers to finally ship that feature, mechanic, or concept previously cut from other projects. AI tool use is completely optional: teams can work with as many agents as they want or none at all.
Participants may enter solo or in teams of up to five people. The event accepts online participation or in-person attendance in San Francisco (Digital Jungle, November 14–15), where teams from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and others will also be present.
Why does this matter?
The MegaJam coincides with the release of the Unreal Engine 5.9 Preview, built largely with agentic workflows. The jam tests in practice how developers use AI agents, MCP, and asset generation to prototype quickly. Main prizes total roughly $65,000 in cash, plus Development Continuation Grants of up to $50,000 per team to continue the project after the event.
What changes in practice?
Main categories: Best Overall Unreal Engine, Best Overall UEFN, and Best Student Project ($7,500 / $5,000 / $2,500 for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd). Modifier categories include Best Team, Solo Driver, Render Royalty, Pocket Powerhouse, Glass Box (best dev log), and Walkie-Talkie (best narrative with LLM-powered NPCs in UEFN). Registration and submission happen on itch.io. The game must be developed during the official window; tools and setup can be prepared beforehand.
By Grok
