Unreal Engine project setup

This guide details the recommended engine versions, required SDKs, and Android project settings when developing an Unreal Engine app for Android XR.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up Unreal Engine for Android XR development, you need to install the following applications and tools:

1. Download and install the Epic Games Launcher.

   1. From the Epic Games Launcher, install version 5.6.1 (or higher) of Unreal Engine.

2. Set up your system to build C++ code (for example, using Visual Studio 2022 for Windows, or Xcode for macOS). For more information, see Epic's C++ development environment setup.

3. Install the .NET 8.0 SDK.

4. Install Android Studio (Panda 4 | 2025.3.4 Patch 1 or higher).

Install Android build support

Because Android XR relies on specific SDK versions, you must install the correct Android build tools alongside Unreal Engine.

1. Open the Epic Games Launcher.

2. Click the drop-down arrow next to your installed Engine version (Launch button) and click Options.

   1. Scroll further to the installation options, select Android, and click Apply.
   2. If prompted, allow the engine to register any file extensions that it requires.

3. Install Java JDK 17.

4. In Android Studio, use the SDK Manager to install the following specific versions required by the Android XR samples:

   • SDK Platforms: 34, 35, and 36
   • NDK: 29.0.x
   • Command-line Tools (all items)

5. Follow Epic's Advanced setup and troubleshooting guide to configure the following system environment variables:

   • ANDROID_HOME
   • JAVA_HOME
   • NDK_ROOT

Create an Unreal XR project

Next, create a new project and configure it with the necessary XR plugins and inputs:

1. Launch Unreal Engine 5.6.1.
2. Under New Project Categories, select the Virtual Reality template.
3. In the Project Defaults menu, set the Target Platform to Mobile.
4. Set the Quality Preset to Scalable to promote optimal performance on mobile XR hardware.
5. Choose a project name, and then click Create.

Configure Android settings

After your project is open, complete these steps to set the required Android API levels and graphics settings for Android XR:

1. Go to Edit > Project Settings.
2. Navigate to Platforms > Android.
3. If the Accept SDK License button is highlighted red, click it.
4. In the APKPackaging section:
   • Set Minimum SDK Version to 34.
   • Set Target SDK Version to 34 (or higher).

5. Scroll further to the Build section and select Support Vulkan.

   Vulkan is the recommended, highly-performant graphics API for Android XR.

Configure rendering settings

To achieve the high frame rates and visual clarity required for Android XR, you must also configure Unreal Engine to use the optimized mobile rendering path:

1. Go to Edit > Project Settings and navigate to Engine > Rendering.

2. Under the Forward Renderer section, select Forward Shading.

   The forward renderer is significantly faster for mobile VR than the default deferred renderer. Note that enabling this requires an editor restart and shader compilation.

3. Under the Default Settings section, set the Anti-Aliasing Method to MSAA.

4. Under the Mobile section, set Mobile MSAA to 4x.

   MSAA provides the sharpest results for VR without the blurring effects caused by Temporal AA (TAA).

5. Under the VR section:

   1. Clear Mobile HDR.

      Disabling High Dynamic Range on mobile drastically reduces the post-processing overhead.

   2. Select Mobile Multi-View.

      This allows the engine to render both eyes in a single pass, significantly improving CPU performance.

See also

For detailed instructions on deploying a template project to an Android-powered device, refer to Setting up Unreal Engine projects for Android development.