Before you start
Software requirements
Unreal Engine 5.0+ or Unreal Engine 4.20+ (Unreal Engine 4.25.4+ to work with .uproject directly)
Microsoft build tools for compiling Unreal Engine projects.
If you have full Visual Studio on your machine, the build tools are included there.
Without Visual Studio, you need to install Visual Studio Build Tools separately: you can find the installer download link at the bottom of the Visual Studio Downloads page, under Tools for Visual Studio. Run the installer and select the required components.
Make sure that the versions of the components correspond to your Unreal Engine version (you can check versions compatibility in the Unreal Engine documentation). For example, for Unreal Engine 5.6, you need the following versions of the required components:
Windows 11 SDK (10.0.26100.3916 or later)
.NET Framework SDK (4.8.1 or later)
MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ x64/x86 build tools (v14.38-17.8)
Note that using MS Build Tools for commercial products requires a valid Visual Studio license.
Unreal Engine 5.0+ or Unreal Engine 4.26+
Xcode command line developer tools (to install, use the
xcode-select --installcommand)For the C# projects targeting .NET Framework: Mono. For projects targeting .NET Core (.NET 5+), Mono is not required.
Unreal Engine 5.0+ or Unreal Engine 4.26.2+
For the C# projects targeting .NET Framework: Mono. For projects targeting .NET Core (.NET 5+), Mono is not required.
Hardware requirements
Working with Unreal Engine projects typically requires loading the Unreal Engine source code, which consumes a significant amount of memory. Therefore, in addition to the general hardware requirements, ensure that your computer has at least 16 GB of RAM, with 32 GB recommended.
Set up integration with Unreal Editor
Earlier Unreal Engine versions
Starting with 4.25 on Windows and 4.26.2 on macOS, Unreal Editor has built-in support for JetBrains Rider with Unreal Engine features. If you’re using an earlier version of Unreal Engine, you need to install the RiderSourceCodeAccess plugin manually. For more information, refer to the plugin page on GitHub.
Unreal Editor will list JetBrains Rider as a supported source code editor (). You can select a specific version, or just select Rider to always use the latest installed version.
Install plugins
The first time you open an Unreal Engine project, you'll see a notification that the RiderLink plugin is missing. This plugin is very useful as it enables advanced integration between JetBrains Rider and Unreal Editor with features such as opening a blueprint in Unreal Editor when JetBrains Rider finds usages of code inside this blueprint.
Clicking the corresponding links will install the plugin, either to the engine or locally to the project. Experienced developers often recommend installing it to the engine to ensure that it’s available for all projects you work on. If you skip this pop-up message, you can install the plugin later on the page of Rider settings. And if you decide to change the installation location, use Force Install RiderLink in Engine/Force Install RiderLink in Game actions, which you can find using Find Action Ctrl+Shift+A.
Another useful plugin is EzArgs providing functionality for working with command-line arguments.
Improve performance on Windows
To avoid significant performance overhead from antivirus scanning, it is highly recommended to add exclusions for your Unreal Engine and project folders in Windows Defender.
When you first launch JetBrains Rider with an Unreal Engine project, a notification should appear in the bottom-right corner offering to automatically configure these exclusions. If you miss this notification, you can also manually add your Unreal Engine installation folder and your project folder to the Windows Security exclusions list.
Open an Unreal Engine project
You can work with the .uproject directly in JetBrains Rider, without generating a Visual Studio solution, Xcode project files, or any extra project models like Makefiles. On Windows, you can alternatively open your .sln files.
To open a standalone engine project, you can use UE4Games.uprojectdirs or Default.uprojecdirs, similar to .uproject.
If the project is opened via .uproject file, you can access the .Build.cs, .uproject, and .uplugin files using one of the following options:
Right-click the corresponding high-level item in the Solution Explorer and choose from the context menu. For example, to open the Build.cs file, right-click the game project and choose .
Press Ctrl+Shift+N or choose .
Recommended Rider settings
While JetBrains Rider provides sensible defaults for Unreal Engine development, some developers prefer to adjust certain settings to reduce cognitive load or improve visibility. Based on recommendations from experienced Unreal Engine developers (like Tom Looman), you might want to consider the following adjustments:
Disable Full Line code completion
To avoid the cognitive load of constantly checking and reasoning about AI-generated suggestions, you can disable this feature in .
Disable Code Folding for Imports
If you prefer to see all
#includedirectives at all times (for example, to easily identify unused includes), disable this in .Disable Reader Mode
If you find that rendered comments in engine source code are distracting or slow to load, you can disable this mode in .