Unreal Engine 5
It was our first true next-gen moment. Weve been wondering about what sort of a leap were going to be able to see with Xbox Series X and PS5, and now Epic has delivered us a stunning tech demo that offers a glimmering promise of what these machines are capable of. And yes, that demo definitely does its job. Lets watch it again:
Its exciting! But its important to remember what were looking at. This is a tech demo, even if it is playable. It is not what games will look like at the launch of the Xbox Series X and PS5, and it likely wont be what games look like for a little while after that. Unreal Engine 5 wont even be in preview until early 2021, with full launch coming later that year. But this is what Epic has been doing for a while: showing off the future before it arrives.
For context, lets check out the big tech demo for Unreal Engine 4, from 2012:
Its interesting to watch the above. Games certainly didnt look like that in 2012, but things have changed. And while there are certain aspects of that video that you might not see in a game today, if you released this today and told me it was for a game available right now, Id definitely believe you. Maybe Ill say the same thing in 8 years about this demo, or maybe Ill say the same thing in less time than that.
For now, there are lots of other reasons why games wont be making games that look like this for a little while, and tech is only one of them. For most developers, the economics of building games for a small subset of players with the latest hardware just dont make sense, which is why were going to see such a strong emphasis on cross-gen development.
Unreal Engine 5 will impact the industry at all levels: tools arent just about improving what people can do with the biggest budgets and the most powerful hardware, theyre about reducing the labor and technical costs of every aspect of game development. The biggest changes might be the ones that you never really see in a demo, but the ones that make life easier for developers. So in a few years, when high-end developers are starting to realize some of the true potential of next-gen hardware, the most interesting games might still be coming from smaller developers empowered by better tech and tools.
So, for right now, this stuff is exciting to see, but what were seeing is the possibility of what games will be able to look like with next-gen. For right now, Im mostly curious about what games Ill be playing in the Fall, and a lot of it is going to be cross-gen stuff that looks beautiful, if not revolutionary. If were going to see a next-gen exclusive stunner at this point, a first-party Sony title is our primary candidate, because Microsoft has committed to releasing all exclusives on Xbox One for the time being.
Read more from the original source:
Unreal Engine 5 Just Showed Us Next-Gen Gaming, But Dont Expect Games To Look Like That Yet - Forbes
