#467 – Tim Sweeney: Fortnite, Unreal Engine, and the Future of Gaming
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2025
⏱️ 270 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridman.com/sponsors/ep467-sc
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EPISODE LINKS:
Tim's X: https://x.com/timsweeneyepic
Epic Games: https://epicgames.com/
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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
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Tim Sweeney, a legendary video game programmer, founder and |
| 0:05.3 | CEO of Epic Games that created many incredible games and technologies, including the Unreal |
| 0:11.5 | Engine and Fortnite, which both revolutionized the video game industry and the experience |
| 0:18.2 | of playing and creating video games. |
| 0:22.6 | And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. |
| 0:26.0 | Check them out in the description is the best way to support this podcast. |
| 0:29.8 | We've got Notion for AI-fueled, note-taking, masterclass for learning, Shopify for selling stuff, AG1 for nutrition and element for electrolytes. |
| 0:40.5 | Choose wise and my friends. I'm doing these ad reads all in one place, so hopefully that makes it |
| 0:45.4 | easy for you to skip them if you don't want to listen to them, but I do try to make them |
| 0:49.5 | interesting and personal, often related to stuff I'm reading or thinking about. |
| 0:54.6 | But if you do skip them, please still check out the sponsors. |
| 0:57.4 | Sign up, get their stuff. |
| 0:58.7 | I enjoy. |
| 0:59.2 | Maybe you will too. |
| 1:00.3 | Also, if you want to get in touch with me, for whatever reason, go to lexfremant.com |
| 1:03.8 | slash contact. |
| 1:05.2 | 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, |
| 1:12.4 | you can apply, or if you just want to grab a coffee, somewhere in the middle of nowhere as I travel |
| 1:18.1 | the world. All right, now on to the full addries. Let's go. This episode is brought to you by |
| 1:24.1 | Notion, a note-taking and team collaboration tool. Obviously, we talk a lot |
| 1:29.7 | with Tens Sweeney in this episode about the incorporation of sort of AI-like, semi-autonomous, |
| 1:37.0 | human-in-a-loop type technology in the creative process, in computer graphics process, in lighting |
... |
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