XR refers to the continuum of virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality experiences. With extensive support for XR platforms and devices, you can use Unreal Engine to deploy your project to any XR platform and utilize immersive devices in your content creation pipeline.
Epic Games is one of the founding members of the OpenXR Working Group along with the Khronos Group and industry partners. This multi-company group is working to solve XR fragmentation with a cross-platform standard. OpenXR is a royalty-free, open standard that provides high-performance access to XR platforms and devices. With OpenXR, you can create an immersive experience in Unreal Engine that can run on any system that supports the OpenXR APIs. See the OpenXR section for more information on how to use OpenXR in your projects.
Your Unreal Engine project can ship with the following plugins enabled: OpenXR, Oculus, SteamVR, and Windows Mixed Reality. When you launch your app, the list of plugins is checked in order of the plugin’s priority from highest to lowest. The first plugin in the list, whose runtime the app can connect to, will be selected. The following is the current order of plugin priority, from highest to lowest:
- Oculus
- OpenXR
- Windows Mixed Reality
- SteamVR
The following sections contain information on how to set up and use the XR platforms supported in Unreal Engine.