Packaging / Exporting your Unreal Project

This tutorial is intended for when you want to export your Unreal Engine Project to a package so that others can play it without having to go through the tedious process of installing Unreal Editor. For more information on Unreal Engine, see this page.

Tutorial

1) In Unreal Editor, choose "File > Create Project with Visual Studio" or "File > Refresh Visual Studio Project". After the project is created/refreshed, you should choose the option to open Visual Studio.

NOTE: It is possible to use Unreal Editor with other IDEs that support C++. However, Visual Studio is the easiest to setup for Windows since it comes bundled with all the necessary C++ compilers and build tools.

2) In Visual Studio, click "Build > Build Solution" (or press Ctrl+Shift+B). The project should take a moment to compile for the first time or when you make major changes to the C++ code.

3) In Unreal Editor, open the Packaging Settings via "File > Package Project > Packaging Settings".

Under Project Settings - Packaging: Configure these packaging settings in the way that makes the most sense for your project. If you are distributing your packaged project, you should select "Use Pak File", set Build Configuration to "Shipping", and select "Full Rebuild, "For Distribution", and "Include Pre-Requisites Installer".

Under Project Settings - Description: Set the project name and thumbnail to your app's branding.

4) In Unreal Editor, click "File > Package Project > Windows (64-bit)" to start the packaging process! You will be asked to select the root folder that the project should be packaged to. You may select any output directory here: your project root or even your desktop will do. This should take a while the first time your package your project, and can still take a little bit after subsequent packages.

After the packaging has completed, you should find a folder called "WindowsNoEditor" (or similar depending on configuration) in the directory that you chose for packaging to. This folder will contain all the necessary binaries for your game (including the EXE to launch your app).

Make sure when you distribute your game, you keep all the files in the WindowsNoEditor folder together. You may rename the folder and the core EXE if you wish, but you should not touch the other files.

5) (optional) You may want to make a self-extracting archive to make it easier to distribute your game files. See this tutorial if you are interested in that.