After two years since it was first announced, Epic Games has finally released its newest game engine, Unreal Engine 5.
This game engine has a number of improvements for game developers, including better performance and interface. But the main change is in a number of technologies to produce very realistic visuals, just like a photo.
One of them is Lumen, which is described as a dynamic lighting solution for very real lighting. There's also Nanite, which according to Epic allows developers to create games with a lot of geometric detail.
But there are also practical features, such as a feature to divide the open world view of a game into small parts, which should make it easier for the development team to work on them separately.
The new generation of consoles comes with new player expectations too. Players want image speeds of up to 60 fps or more on high-resolution displays, putting a huge burden on rendering sources.
With Temporal Super Resolution (TSR), a built-in upsampling system that is platform independent and high quality, this engine can render at a much lower resolution with the same pixel fidelity as an image rendering at a higher resolution. The result is better performance.
The combination of these features is expected to make it easier for developers to work on large-scale games with high-quality displays. One developer who has confirmed the use of Unreal Engine 5 is CD Projekt Red, which will work on the next generation of The Witcher using this engine.
Last December, Epic released a demo of The Matrix Awakens, an open world game that combines the faces of Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss with an open world population filled with metahuman characters.
In December 2020, Epic Games showcased the demo look of Unreal Engine 5 on PS5. According to Epic, the maximum capabilities of the next generation console can only be seen when developers can fully access creative software such as UE5.
Epic also provides two free samples to demonstrate the new features in Unreal Engine 5.
Lyra Starter Game
Lyra Starter Game is an example of a gameplay project created in conjunction with the development of UE5 as an excellent starting point for creating new games, as well as hands-on learning materials.
City Sample
City Sample is a free download sample project. This project reveals how the cityscape from The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine Experience was created. This project - consisting of a city, complete with buildings, vehicles, and crowds of MetaHuman characters - demonstrates how Epic uses the new and improved systems of Unreal Engine 5 to create the experience.
