How to Download & Install Unreal Engine 4 

Thinking of building the next Fortnite? 

Whether you’re an indie game developer or whether you just want to create your own virtual world and just have fun, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine is one of the two finest game engines out there along with the Unity Engine.

In this little guide, I’ll show you step-by-step on how you can install Unreal Engine 4 onto your Windows or Mac.

There are certain conditions, however, that you will need to understand before you install the Unreal Engine. These conditions are not covered in the official tutorial by Epic Games.

Let’s dive right in.

Step 1: Creating Your Own Epic Games Account.

  1. Jump into Epic Games’ Unreal Engine page and then click the Get Started Now button.

 download and install unreal engine 4

  1. Now, fill out the usual crap, like your username (Display Name), your email address, password. You can uncheck the “I would like to receive the latest news and information on this product” if you wish to not be spammed with emails from Epic Games. You must, however, check the “I have read and agree to the terms of service.

Note

If you’re planning to sell your creations in the future, it is important to read the terms of service beforehand. Epic Games takes a royalty fee of 5% from all the revenue generated by your product(s) as well as 2% late fees if you don’t pay in time. If you don’t want to be stuck in such a relationship where you lose a lot of money in fees, then I strongly recommend that you go for Unity as your game engine. Here’s a great guide: 

  1. Lastly, hit Create Account when you’re done and then click to Proceed to Download. The download should start automatically. 
 download and install unreal engine 4

Help! The file did not download automatically for me.

If the download did not automatically happen, then simply choose the desired operating system (Windows or Mac) from the “Thank you for downloading UE4” page.

download unreal engine


  1. Once the download is complete, simply Run the Installer. Hit the Install button when the Epic Games Launcher Setup window (as shown below) appears

install unreal engine

  1. This will install the launcher which launches the Epic Games dashboard. From inside this dashboard, we will be able to download and install the Unreal Engine 4. 

Step 2: Signing into your Epic Launcher using your Epic Account.

Once you see the Epic Games Launcher is, well, launched. Simply Sign In using your Epic Games Account that you had created earlier.

Sign into Epic Games account

Step 3: Installing Unreal Engine 4.

Now that you’re signed in, you’re ready to install Unreal Engine 4.

Note

Unreal Engine takes up almost 8 gigabytes of disk space on your machine. This can add up if you have multiple versions of the engine installed previously (which should be removed). Make sure you have enough storage space before you install Unreal Engine.

Here’s how to download and install Unreal Engine 4:

  1. Do you see the sidebar to your left? There will be a section called Unreal Engine. Click on the Unreal Engine tab.

Select UE4 from Epic Games Store

  1. Next, click the yellow Install Engine button that is to your top right corner. This will begin downloading and installing the latest version of the Unreal Engine.

Installing Unreal Engine 4

  1. Now you’ll see a pop-up asking you to Choose install location. Don’t panic. 🙂 You can choose a location on your machine (if you want to). The way I would personally do it is to just accept the default location shown and just hit Install.

Install executable file


How long will the download and installation take?

It depends. If your machine fulfills the system’s specifications, then downloading and installing Unreal Engine will take anywhere between 10-40 minutes. As I said, it really depends since your Internet connection speeds also play a part too. Be patient. 


Help! It looks like it is not downloading. I don’t see any progress.

At times the download progress meter can just stop working. It did for me.

Although the download speed and process can stop showing, you can pay attention to the top right-hand corner under Download, the progress (%) to see if that is moving.

Also, make sure to check your internet connection if that is causing any problems. If you’re positive that nothing works, then simply cancel the download, restart the Epic Games launcher and start again by hitting the Download button.

Step 4: A-last, It is here! Launching the Unreal Game Engine.

Great work. Now that the Unreal Engine is completely downloaded and installed, you should see a Launch button. From there, simply hit the Launch button to get started.

Launch Unreal Engine

This wraps our guide on how to download and install Unreal Engine 4 on both Windows 10 and Mac machines. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below, and we will try out best to help.

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂

Author

  • Jake is the Editor-in-Chief of Saint and an independent software developer, with a Bachelors in Computer Science from Lancaster University, UK. He loves trying out various tech from the Flipper Zero to coding Raspberry Pis for automation. He started Saint back in 2016, having written over 100 posts, with the sole purpose of creating guides for software that had yet to exist back then to help users navigate around their technical problems.

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6 comments
  1. Hey, if I shut my PC off the download resets! can the launcher not resume back from the point it last downloaded?

  2. When I press “Install” nothing happens! I’ve seen this problem elsewhere, but nothing is fixing it for me? Help!

  3. This nor the official tutorial talk about administrative privileges. Does the program need these just to install or to each time it’s run?

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