XR Lab Internship

Role: Game Designer

Engine/Tools Used: Unreal Engine 5

Period: February 2026 - July 2026

Overview

I started my internship with three learning goals; to improve my Unreal Engine skills, to learn what it means to be proactive in a company setting, and to gain experience speaking with professional clients.
XR Lab provided all of these opportunities, with their company providing VR and AR applications built to train, educate, showcase, and entertain. Here, I’ve learned valuable skills with my learning goals in mind, preparing myself for a place in the game industry.

Learning goals

  • Learn and become flexible with Unreal Engine 5, to the same extent at which I’ve gotten comfortable with Unity. Improving my ability to prototype and create game mechanics.

  • Become proactive in a professional work environment, always making sure I have a task to do and keeping myself useful in an environment where I’m not a project lead.

  • Improve my professional communication skills, particularly by showcasing demos to the clients of XR Lab’s projects.

Personal contributions

  • Created rapid prototypes of various mechanics using Unreal Engine 5 blueprints.

  • Studied and implemented Metahumans, to ensure a realistic experience.

  • Contributed to daily stand-ups with the rest of the team.

  • Took charge in preparing and showcasing demos to XR Lab’s clients.

  • Wrote detailed game design documents for each of the projects I was involved in.

  • Tied together game mechanics created by the team of engineers, making games playable.

Process

With my main goal being to gain Unreal Engine 5 experience, I decided to pick up as many simple prototyping tasks as I could to get a feel for the fundamentals of the engine. Quantum Delta was perfect for this as it was still early in development. I created multiple versions of the in-game controllers for the clients to test and give feedback on, before applying it and improving the final product.

Of course controller types weren’t the only things I prototyped before presenting the demo. With a demo plan written out, I was able to gain valuable feedback on UI, lighting, sound, gameplay, and art assets too.

Aside from Unreal Engine skills, I also contributed by taking on the odd jobs that were forgotten by the team, or didn’t have anyone assigned to them. Proactivity in the company setting was one of my learning goals, and it’s a skill which is very important to me.
I wrote essential documents which were missing in early development, and were since used by each team member throughout the project.
This attitude even got me to take part in the design for their newest project, project Beethoven. While it was very early in the works, I was given the task to write the game design document, and to create early prototypes for different minigames within the game.

I used iCOVER to improve more in-depth Unreal Engine skills. Learning about essential tools that make the engine easier to use and learn from. Especially when working with Metahumans and their facial animations, the reference viewer was essential.

Because I was working with code that wasn’t just my own, I was able to learn more about the uses of these features than I would have outside of a company. I was able to look into blueprint interfaces, various uses for arrays, animation blueprints, and more just by learning from code they had already written. Of course I also added to the knowledge pool with notify states and creative uses of timelines.

Learning more about the engine, I became comfortable using it to implement new mechanics which could last for the entire span of the project.

Outcome

Even before having finished my internship, I can confidently say that I chose the right company to intern at. I can tell that the things that I’ve learned will be invaluable to me when finding my place in the industry.

My supervisor stated she felt comfortable giving me important tasks, because she knows I will get them done with quality and in a timely fashion. I believe this is mostly due to showing initiative in taking up tasks, and being proactive in the team. It built my confidence as I moved through the weeks knowing I was contributing greatly to the final products.

When I finish my internship, I will leave knowing I have picked up Unreal Engine skills which will prove sufficient in any company to prototype game mechanics.