Client development: a forced stop caused by an absurd Unreal–Microsoft toolchain lockout

Client development is now on hold until further notice. Not because of an internal decision, not because of a change in direction, and certainly not because there is no work left to do. It is on hold because, quite simply, normal development is not currently possible.

The situation is as ridiculous as it is simple: Microsoft has retired Visual Studio 2022 while Unreal Engine still is not ready to compile properly against Visual Studio 2026. In other words, the tool the engine still depends on is being phased out, while the tool that is currently available still cannot be used to work with it.

The result of this brilliant coordination between major vendors is the usual one: the developer gets stuck with the fallout. New development machines cannot be set up with a clean, current, reproducible environment. And without that, there is no serious development — only patches, workarounds, and wasted hours spent keeping alive a toolchain that should have been properly supported in the first place.

So no, this is not a “strategic pause.” It is a forced stop caused by a completely stupid version mismatch between critical dependencies. Until Epic releases an engine version that genuinely supports the current development environment, continuing work on the client would mean wasting time, degrading the project’s technical foundation, and turning development into a pile of temporary fixes that are bound to break.

As soon as that compatibility exists, work will resume. Until then, all that remains is to wait for the companies controlling these tools to catch up with reality.