# Universal Player Combat > Player combat for Unreal Engine 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8: combos that chain and cancel, weapons with their own moves, lock-on, parry and block, and executions, set up in Blueprint with no C++, in single player and multiplayer. Every link below opens the markdown version of a docs page; the same address without `.md` is the page itself, the one to give a reader. All pages in one file: https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/llms-full.txt ## Overview - [Universal Player Combat: Player Combat for Unreal Engine 5](https://rigbak.com/docs/UniversalPlayerCombatDocs.md): Player combat plugin for Unreal Engine 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8: combos that chain and cancel, weapons with their own moves, lock-on, parry and block, executions and an inventory, set up in Blueprint with no C++, in single player and multiplayer. ## Start here - [Getting Started with Universal Player Combat](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/getting-started.md): Turn Universal Player Combat on, play the demo map and land a hit with a sword off the rack, then build on the demo player or remove the demo when you no longer need it. - [Build Your First Combo](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/first-combo.md): Build a sword with a three-hit combo from two assets of your own, an action graph and an item, and the demo's animation, mesh and keys. The demo's Item_UPC_Sword is the finished version. - [Character Setup](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/character-setup.md): Make a character of your own fight without changing its parent class: the components to add, the settings they need, the ready signal and the interface that answers hits. - [AI Agent Guide](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/agents.md): Universal Player Combat ships a guide for the AI coding agent you already use, such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor: hand it over with the editor open, and it builds a player from your mesh and animations. ## Moves - [Action Graph](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/action-graph.md): An Action Graph is a character's moveset: each node plays a move, a transition names the input that leads to the next, and a window on the animation says when that input counts. - [Action Graph Editor](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/action-graph-editor.md): The Action Graph editor shows a character's moves as cards: wire them, fold in another graph, copy a transition onto many moves, and watch the graph run in play. - [Gates, Costs and Cooldowns](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/gates-costs-cooldowns.md): Gates, costs and cooldowns on Action Graph moves: a gate decides whether a move may start, a cost is what it spends, and a cooldown makes it wait before it runs again, banking uses as charges. - [Input](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/input.md): Input turns a key into an input tag that the action graph or an ability answers. An item brings its keys while drawn and takes them back when put away; two buttons together can send a chord. ## Items and equipment - [Items](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/items.md): An item is one asset: its name and icon, how many stack together, and a list of fragments, each adding one thing the item can do, such as be drawn into the hand, hang on the back or lie on the ground. - [Equipment](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/equipment.md): Equipment holds a drawn item in a place on the body, such as the right hand, and hangs it in another, such as a back sheath, when put away. The drawn item driving combat gives the character its moves. - [Quick Bar](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/quick-bar.md): The quick bar is a belt of slots on the player controller, each holding one owned item. A key per slot draws its item or puts it away; an item that cannot be held, such as a potion, is used instead. - [Pickups, Drops and Holders](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/pickups-drops-holders.md): An item lying in the world is a world item, picked up with Interact. Dropping turns what is in hand back into one, and a rack, an item holder, holds items in named places to take and put back. ## Inventory - [Inventory](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory.md): Everything a character owns sits in its UPC Inventory as stacks: three potions are one stack of three. With no config it is one list with no limits; a config adds slots, a grid, weight limits or bags. - [Use Only Part of the Inventory](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-pick-what-you-need.md): Each part of the UPC inventory is something you add, so a game takes only the parts it plays with: a belt alone needs no config and no screen, and bags, combines, chests and saving are each optional. - [Survival Grid Inventory](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-survival-grid.md): The Survival Grid inventory style: a small case where each item takes room by its size and can lie turned to fit, key items in their own list, a hip pouch and a stash. - [Party RPG Inventory](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-party-rpg.md): The Party RPG inventory style: a backpack with no size that slows the character as it fills, pouches with slots of their own, worn gear on a paper doll, a belt of four slots in a row and a stash. - [Open World List Inventory](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-open-world-list.md): The Open World List inventory style, as in Skyrim: one sorted list with room for everything, a category column by item kind, weight that stops the character past a limit, and no belt. - [Containers and Rules](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-containers.md): An inventory config gives a character its containers, such as a backpack of slots, a grid case or a bank, and limits on what it carries, such as a weight limit that tags the character Overburdened. - [Bags and Banks](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-bags.md): A bag is an item that opens a container of its own, in a backpack or on a bag bar. A bank or a stash keeps items off the character until the player stands at it. - [Combines](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-combines.md): Combines turn one item dropped onto another into new items: two herbs make a mixed herb, poison and arrows make poison arrows. Write them as recipe rows in a Combine Set, or as a Blueprint class. - [Loot Chests](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/loot-chests.md): Chests, stashes and enemy loot keep their items in a UPC World Inventory that every nearby player sees. One press takes everything that fits, or opens the inventory screen with the chest beside it. - [Inventory Screens](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-screens.md): Each ready inventory style ships its own inventory screen, opened with I or a tap of View. Copy one and restyle it, or build your own on the checks and requests the shipped screens use. - [Saving the Inventory](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-saving.md): Save the inventory in your game's own Save Game. The plugin saves nothing itself: Export Snapshot hands over each stack with its place, state and belt slot, and Import Snapshot puts it all back. - [Inventory Rules and Combines in Blueprint](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/inventory-blueprint.md): Write your own inventory rules, combines and item fragments in Blueprint with no C++, copying from the seven the demo ships. ## Feel and motion - [Combat Styles](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/combat-styles.md): A Combat Style is one asset that sets a character's combat feel: how the body turns, which enemies it picks, how far attacks travel, how the camera follows. - [Targeting](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/targeting.md): Targeting picks the enemy the character fights, locks onto one on a button, switches the lock with a flick, and knows when enemies are near. UPC Targetable makes any actor a candidate. - [Attack Steering](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/attack-steering.md): Attack Steering makes an attack turn to its target, close the gap and stop short of it instead of running into it, through windows you mark on the montage and the UPC Attack Approach component. - [Camera](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/camera.md): UPC Camera Rig gives the player a third-person camera: the combat style or weapon in hand sets its distance and view, a tag such as sprinting blends in a change, and it follows a locked target. - [Sprint and Speed](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/sprint-and-speed.md): UPC Sprint makes the character walk by default and sprint on a button, held or tapped, for a stamina cost. Gameplay tags slow it, and a sprint, a slow and a speed upgrade combine. ## Landing a hit - [Melee Trace](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/melee-trace.md): Melee trace lands a weapon's hits: the item names its hit volumes, a window on the attack montage opens them, and a sweep fills the gap between frames, so a fast swing connects at 30 FPS and at 144. - [Damage and Hit Effects](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/damage-and-hit-effects.md): What an attack is worth and what a landed hit does: the damage config, how a character takes a hit, impact cues by surface, hit stop, and a swing that bites on impact. - [Defense](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/defense.md): Defense gives a character a guard: an ordered list of responses (parry, block, invulnerability, armor) answers each hit, and the first that fits decides the damage and tells the attacker. - [Hit Reactions](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/hit-reactions.md): Hit reactions make a struck character answer the blow: an event sent as the hit lands and an ability that answers it, with poise deciding which hit breaks through and hyper armor carrying a heavy swing on. - [Physical Reactions](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/physical-reactions.md): Physical reactions move a character's bones under physics when a blow lands and drop the body limp when it dies: named reactions in a set, played from a hit or a Blueprint. - [Vitals](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/vitals.md): Give a character resource pools: health that hits take, stamina that refills on its own, and any other pool you name, spent by moves, drained over time and read by a HUD. - [Telegraphs](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/telegraphs.md): Telegraphs warn the player about incoming attacks: a flare over a swing a guard can stop, a cross over an unblockable one, nothing over one that opens a counter, and markers over a stunned enemy. ## World - [Interaction](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/interaction.md): Add UPC Interactable to any actor and a character can use it: pull a lever, open a door. The character's UPC Interactor picks the best one nearby, a prompt shows the key, and a press runs the option. - [Interaction Payloads](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/interaction-payloads.md): An interaction option's Payload is what the character does when it runs: walk up to the chest, play the opening, and tell the chest the frame the lid lifts. A dodge can break out of it. - [Paired Actions](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/paired-actions.md): A paired action is one move two or more characters play together, such as an execution, a counter or a grab: each fills a role with its own montage, and all line up around one spot on the ground. - [Pairing Editor](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/pairing-editor.md): A Paired Action opens in the pairing editor: stand-ins on their rings in a viewport, a timeline of each role's part, montage and events, camera shots, and a list of what still needs fixing. ## Presentation - [Animation Integration](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/animation-integration.md): Animation integration keeps combat timing on the animation: a montage window holds a gameplay tag, an item brings its own animation layer, a frame asks for a footstep, and the pose holds on a hit. - [HUD and Input Prompts](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/hud-and-input-prompts.md): Build a HUD that follows the character: bars and markers that show with the combat style, cooldowns and held states from the ability system, and button prompts that show the key the player has bound. ## Reference - [Multiplayer](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/multiplayer.md): Play online on a listen or dedicated server: a player's moves answer the button at once, the server has the final word on what they cost and hit, and the editor can add lag to test it. - [Patterns](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/patterns.md): Recipes built on the demo: the three combat styles, a parry and a block, a counter, a shield bash, a dodge with two charges, an execution, a door and a chest, and a heavy that shrugs off hits. ## Guides - [Souls-like Player Combat in Unreal Engine 5: Where to Start](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/soulslike-player-combat-ue5.md): What a Dark Souls style player character needs in Unreal Engine 5 (combos that commit, stamina, a dodge, lock-on, block and parry, poise, executions, weapons and potions) and the Universal Player Combat page that sets up each one in Blueprint. - [One Item at a Time: No Hotbar, No Inventory Screen](https://rigbak.com/docs/universal-player-combat/one-item-at-a-time.md): Make the player carry only the item in hand in Unreal Engine 5, as in a brawler or a survival game: a one-slot inventory with no hotbar or inventory screen, where a pickup goes to the hand and swaps the weapon held.