Unreal Engine 5 Ladder System Tutorial (First Person Setup)
Build a clean, reusable ladder climbing system in Unreal Engine 5 for a First Person Character using collision triggers and movement mode control.
This tutorial focuses on a logic driven approach that works with any ladder mesh and does not rely on custom animations. Instead of hacking gravity or forcing movement, we switch movement modes properly and route input through a dedicated climbing system.
We start by creating a dedicated Ladder Actor with a collision trigger to detect when the player enters and exits the ladder. Then we build custom climb events inside the First Person Character Blueprint to control movement state and vertical input.
You will learn:
• How to create a reusable BP_Ladder actor
• How to detect overlap using collision boxes
• How to switch between Walking and Flying movement modes
• How to route Enhanced Input into custom climb movement
• How to use Add Movement Input for vertical climbing
• How to prevent downward movement while grounded
• How to structure a clean climbing system without animation dependencies
By the end, your character will be able to enter a ladder trigger, climb up and down using normal movement input, and exit cleanly at the top or bottom.
This setup is intentionally simple so you can extend it later with animations, root motion, camera offsets, or more advanced traversal systems.
More Unreal Engine 5 gameplay systems and practical movement tutorials coming soon.