Unreal Engine 5 was unvealed over a year ago

[AuthenticM]

A year and five days ago, on May 13th 2020, two months into the pandemic lockdown (!!), Epic unvealed the next numbered release of the Unreal Engine.

These images still manage to make me giddy with excitement about what the future holds for the possibilities of video games. Not just from a pure graphics perspective, but actually more from a level design one. UE5 + SSDs is going to allow crazy asset streaming that will in turn give devs the possibilities to create super dense environment, the likes of which we have never seen befoe in the history of the medium. That's the stuff that excites me, all these new gameplay possibilities.

Moreover, UE5 streamlines some development processes, which will greatly help developers in realizing their vision. Reading some posts from last year's thread (such as this one and that one) was almost as exciting as watching the tech demo itself.

Epic said that the engine would be available in preview form in early 2021, with the full release in late 2021. They also said that some select partners would be getting access to the engine even before that. Hopefully we don't have to wait too long to see games made using this engine. I'd say late 2022 is probably the earliest we could see them, but even that feels like a generous estimation.

Can't wait.

 

[TripleBee]

The UE5 game from the coalition is the one I'm looking forward to seeing. They are easily the strongest Unreal developer out there.

 

[ILikeFeet]

the preview got pushed back to late 2021 unfortunately, so we might have to wait a bit. hopefully Epic shows off some new tools before then though

 

[Deleted member 24907]

The thing from UE5 I'm most looking forward to as a player is the tech that eliminates the need for LOD models. I feel like that alone would do wonders for open-world and large environment games in terms of fidelity.

 

[gozu]

the preview got pushed back to late 2021 unfortunately, so we might have to wait a bit. hopefully Epic shows off some new tools before then though

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Well that's unfortunate. Guess we'll have to wait for PS5pro before we see any UE5 games then.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

...it was what.

 

[est1992]

Idk a lot about game development but being able to just take a high poly model and just insert it into a game seems like such a game changer.

 

[GlowingBovine]

Idk a lot about game development but being able to just take a high poly model and just insert it into a game seems like such a game changer.

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Especially with megascans assets. Having a readily available library of free photogrammetry assets that you can just add to your game is crazy.

 

[TheSentry42]

Which games so far have been announced will use UE5?

• Fortnite
• The Coalition's (Gears of War studio) new game
• Hellblade sequel (and probably any other new games by Ninja Theory)

Any other studios or games say they'll be switching to UE5 yet?

 

[Deleted member 1190]

The fuck is an unvealed

 

[RayCharlizard]

The fuck is an unvealed

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Another word for calf obliteration.

 

[EvilBoris]

Especially with megascans assets. Having a readily available library of free photogrammetry assets that you can just add to your game is crazy.

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It's already becoming tedious having endless natural landscapes and forest based games because it's so easy to make these things with mega scans assets.

Photorealistic graphics will soon become boring when everything looks the same , stylised and artful graphics ftw.

 

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

The UE5 game from the coalition is the one I'm looking forward to seeing. They are easily the strongest Unreal developer out there.

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2nd only to Epic themselves. People take for granted how well Fortnite runs on consoles

 

[Deleted member 17184]

Which games so far have been announced will use UE5?

• Fortnite
• The Coalition's (Gears of War studio) new game
• Hellblade sequel (and probably any other new games by Ninja Theory)

Any other studios or games say they'll be switching to UE5 yet?

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ArcheAge II and Dreamhouse: The Game.

 

[MissCauthon]

So how ginormous are games going to be with this high fidelity? 1tb games?

 

[KENMASTERS1]

Wake me up in 5 years please

 

[Deleted member 68874]

Which games so far have been announced will use UE5?

• Fortnite
• The Coalition's (Gears of War studio) new game
• Hellblade sequel (and probably any other new games by Ninja Theory)

Any other studios or games say they'll be switching to UE5 yet?

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InXile's big AAA game as well.

 

[a Master Ninja]

The only hype deflating aspect of that tech demo was the 30fps and (according to Digital Foundry) sub 1440p.

 

[Arex]

certainly didn't feel like it's been a year lol

Idk a lot about game development but being able to just take a high poly model and just insert it into a game seems like such a game changer.

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File sizes could be a problem, especially working remotely lol. Idk if they say whether we can directly import Zbrush files or if you'd have to export the fbx to use it in UE5. Also not sure yet about performance when using the engine when you have lots of dense meshes, how powerful your pc needs to be etc.

Uploading and downloading big stuff is a hassle depending on where you are.

 

[Vanta Aurelius]

Someone correct me, but wasn't there a limitation with Nanite where it only worked for static geometry? Wouldn't this mean that LODs will still need to be authored for NPCs, effects, and all other dynamic elements in a scene?

 

[VeePs]

Which games so far have been announced will use UE5?

• Fortnite
• The Coalition's (Gears of War studio) new game
• Hellblade sequel (and probably any other new games by Ninja Theory)

Any other studios or games say they'll be switching to UE5 yet?

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For those that don't know, Brian Fargo was one of the founders of Interplay (Fallout Creators & responsible for many more games) and has been the head of InXile for some time now. Wasteland 3 was fantastic and I'm looking forward to what they do next.

(Though we probably won't get their next project until something like 2025 I'm guessing)

 

[Bathory]

A Year Ago ? Yes, being at home really made me lost sense of time...really looking forward to see devs using this amazing engine, I'm so excited to see how games will look and feel 3 years from now.

 

[Finaika]

That demo still looks good.

 

[DeSolos]

Still waiting on the release. It was supposed to have a preview build early 2021, but it sounds like it's not coming till late this year at best.

 

[KAMI-SAMA]

Man I still have a lapse in memory when it comes to 2020. It's such a forgotten year.

 

[TheSentry42]

Which games so far have been announced will use UE5?

• Fortnite
• The Coalition's (Gears of War studio) new game
• Hellblade sequel (and probably any other new games by Ninja Theory)

Any other studios or games say they'll be switching to UE5 yet?

Click to shrink...

Based on feedback we can add to the list:

• inXile entertainment
• ArcheAge II (XLGames)
• Dreamhouse: The Game (DeSand Games Studio - I tried to confirm theyre using UE5 but couldn't)

 

[wafflebrain]

That demo has me craving the next Uncharted to be on that level something fierce. Give me all the tombs and temples with that kind of geometric complexity.

 

[Kindekuma]

So how ginormous are games going to be with this high fidelity? 1tb games?

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Actually might get smaller? Currently devs use caching of assets and textures to save on loading and resource management. But since UE5 more or less eliminates the need to do that then games could get smaller. Kinda hard to explain. But the biggest chunk of data in games is often how an asset is USED than the asset itself.

 

[DangerMouse]

Still looks really good, that was a really cool day seeing that.
Excited to see PS5 games built using it.

 

[J75]

That demo is still hype, drooling for the day we get a retail game similar to those visuals.

 

[Pharaoh]

That demo still looks good.

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And it will for a long time. It's the benchmark for this gen.

 

[Xeonidus]

Fan-freaking-tastic. Such a great showcase. Can't wait to actually see results in games.

 

[Parcas]

Is crazy how the demo hyped everyone so much but at the same time, it kinda set an expectation towards what we should be playing right now on the next generation that set some very unrealistic goals.

 

[Vanta Aurelius]

Is crazy how the demo hyped everyone so much but at the same time, it kinda set an expectation towards what we should be playing right now on the next generation that set some very unrealistic goals.

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Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart has a ton of high density detail. It may not be the exact same as what was shown in the UE5 demonstration, but I think high budget first party games will match these visuals fine. I think the real benefit is to AA and smaller studios who don't have the budget to do all of the custom work to achieve the same level of visual detail.

 

[P40L0]

The UE5 game from the coalition is the one I'm looking forward to seeing. They are easily the strongest Unreal developer out there.

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I agree.
They pushed UE4 over its limits both with Gears 4, Gears 5 and then Gears 5 Hivebusters by the time each was released.

I really can't wait to see what they're cooking next with UE5!

Hellblade 2 is also a strong candidate to see UE5 fully leveraged based on what they did with Hellblade 1 (UE4) with a much smaller team.

 

[KeRaSh]

Me when a game studio announces that their game is being built on UE5:

- Aw yiss!
- It won't be out for a few more years, though...

Didn't we have a report a few weeks ago that UE5 is still a buggy mess? Can't imagine that any game currently being built in that engine is remotely close to being released.

 

[Dr. Mario]

...it was what.

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Don't have a cow, man.

 

[The Praiseworthy]

I cannot wait to see actual games footages using this engine especially Sony first party studios and Square Enix games.

FFVIIR still blows my mind with how it used UE4, can't imagine what they can pull off with UE5...

 

[CD_93]

That gate just reminds me of Returnal now.

 

[JahIthBer]

It's going to be fun seeing the first UE5 title & the damage control when it doesn't look anywhere near close to this demo, people gonna blame the Series S, Epic etc, not gonna lie that drama is always fun.
I think AAA games will get close to this by the end of the generation though, but it's starting to get really expensive & time consuming to produce these visuals, if the dev isn't called Naughty Dog or Rockstar North, don't expect something like this in 2022.

 

[Crossing Eden]

Photorealistic graphics will soon become boring when everything looks the same , stylised and artful graphics ftw.

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You say that as if developers don't all put their own take on natural landscapes. Developers don't aim for photorealism and stop there. There is a metric fuckton of artistry involved in making the following look different:



not everything has to be as stylied as Firewatch to be considered "artful" and "artstyle over graphics" is one of the worst takes because of what it implies.

 

[TwoPikachus]

It is indeed pushed to August September in the current timeline. It's possible that could be pushed back even further. There was a pretty significant refactor of slate for ue5, so all plugins with a UI component had to be rewritten. Additionally many more engine components have been reimplemented as plugins which of course creates issues when one module depends on another.

I don't see the preview coming out after 2021 though. Epic is pretty adamant about getting the engine in the hands of developers this year. There's just a lot of stuff to fix.

If you're a current ue4 developer, don't expect your plugins to work or be compiled quickly. While all of my blueprints were intact, a lot of my c++ had to be adjusted for the stricter structure. I spent a good couple hours adjusting third party plugins to get them to compile and even removed some because I couldn't be bothered to fix the myriad issues not present when compiling the plugins on ue4.

This is not a condemnation of ue5. Far from. I work with Epic. Ue5 is very exciting to me. But as developers using the engine we should keep the expectations in line with reality. It likely won't be super useful to ue4 developers until 2022.

 

[Pyro]

Time flies when you stay inside.

 

[nelsonroyale]

It is still very exciting. OF games near release, Ratchet & Clank is the only game impressing me on this level.

In terms of games that will use it. I am most looking forward to seeing what SE do with it in FFVII R 2 (hope they are going with this rather than UE4), Bend studios since I think Days Gone doesn't get enough credit graphically (Its up there with Gears 5 in terms of most impressive uses of UE4), whqatever the Coalition are cooking, and Hellblade 2.

 

[TwoPikachus]

So how ginormous are games going to be with this high fidelity? 1tb games?

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Maybe, maybe not. LOD models are separate models on disk. They take up s lot of space because they are in a manner of speaking, a redundancy. Most games have 2 or 3 lod levels. Some as many as 8. Now we can just have the highest lod and skip the other lod levels, saving space.

Developers could also go in the other direction: with fewer limits on triangle count, they could eschew normal and displacement maps and sculpt fine details directly into the models, dramatically increasing triangle density and file size. Only time will tell. It will likely come down to what the gaming public is willing to tolerate. Some equilibrium will be reached where the finer details Will give way to the desire for smaller download size.

The only hype deflating aspect of that tech demo was the 30fps and (according to Digital Foundry) sub 1440p.

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Yes, but that's a build from a year ago running on early PS5 hardware.

The technology is always being improved upon. Ue5 is not a silver bullet to remove any and all performance issues we face as developers but it Will dramatically increase fidelity when we want to push the envelope and reduce the GPU load on more modest scenes, provided the hardware has the memory and bandwidth to stream large meshes and keep a bunch in memory while they're visible.

Just like grooms, nanite and lumen will continue to have performance optimizations. Grooms used to barely eke out 20 fps for a single head of hair. Now full grooms can be applied to a character's full body in a game ready scene at 60 fps if you design for it.

 

[Deleted member 46489]

It's already becoming tedious having endless natural landscapes and forest based games because it's so easy to make these things with mega scans assets.

Photorealistic graphics will soon become boring when everything looks the same , stylised and artful graphics ftw.

Click to shrink...

That's like saying Earth is boring. Are you kidding me?

 

[BloodHound]

It is indeed pushed to August September in the current timeline. It's possible that could be pushed back even further. There was a pretty significant refactor of slate for ue5, so all plugins with a UI component had to be rewritten. Additionally many more engine components have been reimplemented as plugins which of course creates issues when one module depends on another.

I don't see the preview coming out after 2021 though. Epic is pretty adamant about getting the engine in the hands of developers this year. There's just a lot of stuff to fix.

If you're a current ue4 developer, don't expect your plugins to work or be compiled quickly. While all of my blueprints were intact, a lot of my c++ had to be adjusted for the stricter structure. I spent a good couple hours adjusting third party plugins to get them to compile and even removed some because I couldn't be bothered to fix the myriad issues not present when compiling the plugins on ue4.

This is not a condemnation of ue5. Far from. I work with Epic. Ue5 is very exciting to me. But as developers using the engine we should keep the expectations in line with reality. It likely won't be super useful to ue4 developers until 2022.

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Yup, full AAA titles running on UE5 I don't expect until 2023. Developers probably won't get a full production ready engine until early 2022. I'm betting devs just recently got early access.

 

[teenaxta]

i remember reading somewhere that UE5 would be available to developers in late 2021. If thats true, then I guess we'll have to wait till what 2023 at least to experience this

 

[J 0 E]

Debuting the UE5 running natively on PS5 is still a stroke of genius on Sony's part!
Sony knew that most third party developers would end up using UE so they worked closely with Epic to develop it with the PS5 architecture in mind which took multiple years.

 

[blastprocessor]

I can't imagine many AAA studios dropping their bespoke engines and using Unreal even though 5 looks to have a couple of nice features in terms of indirect lighting and the ability to drop in those high poly models. I'm actually excited to see further developments of bespoke engines and their innovations.