Unreal Engine 5 – The Next Level In Gaming
Since the next generation games consoles were announced earlier this year, there has unsurprisingly been much hype around the hardware. The specs are out there for the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, but that hasn’t necessarily given us a taste of what they can do, especially when the PC-crowd are quick to point out that most of the hardware isn’t that new.
However, last week Epic Games put on a show for us all, and have opened our eyes to the possibilities. They released the above video to showcase their upcoming Unreal Engine 5 engine. Result: mind-blown!
To showcase its capabilities they walk us through a short third-person game, set in an arid canyon/desert climate (it’s definitely giving off Tomb Raider vibes too). For the impatient the gritty detail really Starts at 1:50 in. You should definitely watch it, but to summarise: billions upon billions of triangles are rendered live in 4K, with real-time global illumination that can be moved and altered in an instant, and 8K textures.
The demo is running on Sony’s PS5, which houses a custom-designed god-tier SSD that allows games to remove loading screens and make split-second environment changes. The Epic Games CEO later praised this in an IGN interview. Whilst the engine itself won’t be available to games developers for a couple of years, this is a great teaser for what can be leveraged from the hardware that is coming.
Meanwhile there’s not a lot of gameplay footage of next-gen games just yet, but there’s two that stood out – despite not showing great gameplay it is in-engine footage. The first being Assassins Creed: Valhalla – the latest game in the series – taking on a Viking setting that will straddle both Norway and England, we might even get to see ye-olde Leeds! The second is Senua’s Saga Hellblade II, which looks creepy as shit, but jaw-dropping lay atmospheric.
Leave a Reply