Unreal Engine 5

The engine can make wonders, but what is more impressive are the drivers behind the wheel - the artists and their imagination!

Makes me excited to imagine what the next Witcher game will look like.

As that teaser demo from Epic showcased what is possible.

Those look almost better than the reality. Of course, these were not optimised for the current-gen consoles and we will likely not see that good graphics in near-future games. Nevertheless, graphics have been, for a long time been, the spearhead AAA developers have pushed time after time. The content lacks behind. We still have very few games that feel like simulations/immersions. Let's face it: writing in most games is not on par with high-budget TV-series, movies or good books. Most good-looking AAA games are gamey. More focus should be put on tools that help the developers make complex interactive games and help keeping control of glitches given all possible iterations of player-choices.

Of course these demos are running off of a server with multiple high-end GPU's. Anyway most of us know that every game gets optimized, and compressed just to be stable.

Otherwise you would need a beast of a machine and 200+GB to play them.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Of course these demos are running off of a server with multiple high-end GPU's. Anyway most of us know that every game gets optimized, and compressed just to be stable.

Otherwise you would need a beast of a machine and 200+GB to play them.

Yup, I was perhaps stating the obvious. It was supposed to function as a smooth bridge to my criticism part about content Graphics are just one, the least important part (for me), yet they look great.

It's certainly impressive, but demos are a lot easier to make than an actual game.

It looks like a bigger jump from UE 4 compared to UE 4 vs UE 3.

I wish they made as much effort to design clever and believable AI behaviour in games.

And I like pretty graphics as much as the next gamer, but I'm not comfortable anymore with having to buy even more expensive hardware that heats up the room and sounds like a jet engine. Maybe that's why I enjoy indies these days.

It's awesome, regardless. I'm impressed how far we've gone with real-time rendering, and both the maths and the hardware feats behind it. I remember optimizing a rendering loop in assembly language, and being proud of the crude result with no lighting, no filtering, as we had in games back then.

Originally Posted by SpoonFULL
The engine can make wonders, but what is more impressive are the drivers behind the wheel - the artists and their imagination!

Yes, it's important to bear in mind in mind that it's the artists that really make these scenes. Epic has the budget to invest in hiring some top talent to make these promotional videos. If we hired the same artists and gave them Cryengine, for example, the results wouldn't be much less impressive, particularly when these are just small scenes without any of the practical constraints of real games.

Not to put down Unreal - it's my engine of choice. But just to consider that it's the skills applied to it that make all the difference.

Imagining the NEXT Cyberpunk 2077 | Unreal Engine 5 HD 4K

Originally Posted by SpoonFULL
The engine can make wonders, but what is more impressive are the drivers behind the wheel - the artists and their imagination!

It is but these days budgets are so high for games that recouping costs become paramount and you get cookie cutter games like Far Cry and Assassins Creed. What matter just as much or even more is an unrelenting vision for their game.