Unreal Engine 5 (hereinafter referred to as Unreal Engine 5 or UE5) has been in the spotlight of entertainment industries such as games, film and television since its stunning debut in May 2020, and now the official version of Unreal Engine 5 is finally here.
On the evening of April 5, Beijing time, Epic Games held an online live conference called "State of Unreal", at which Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney announced the official launch of Unreal Engine 5.
Sweeney said that this is an exciting era, real-time 3D technology is connecting all walks of life, and UE5 will become a medium for everyone to share.
At the same time, he also revealed: "Unreal 5 was tested in Fortnite: Chapter 3 last December. Unreal Engine is used in 48% of announced next-generation console games, and for automotive designers, fashion designers, and architects, Unreal Engine can be seen in the field of design visualization and brand activation to cross-media entertainment. ”
The official version of UE5 is released, and the next generation is just around the corner
Today, Unreal 5 is actually not mysterious, whether it is from the two official demos of Demo "Lumen in the Land of Nanite", "The Matrix Awakening", or from some game demos such as "Black Myth: Wukong", the power of this engine has been glimpsed.
Now, with the release of the official version, I believe that more developers will use Unreal Engine to create amazing content.
According to the official website information, the recommended configurations for Unreal Engine 5 are: Windows 10 64-bit, quad-core Intel or AMD 2.5 GHz or higher processor, 8 GB ram; macOS Big Sur, quad-core Intel or AMD 2.5 GHz or higher processor, 8 GB ram; Linux Ubuntu 18.04, quad-core Intel or AMD 2.5 GHz or higher processor, 32 GB memory. At the business model level, UE5 is basically the same as in the past.
As a new generation of engines launched by Epic, UE5 is most commendable for its Nanite and Lumen technologies, which were shown in Ancient Valley and The Matrix Awakening.
About Nanite and Lumen, Epic has been described in detail in the official Unreal Engine documentation, and GameLook has reported on them in the past, so I will not repeat them here.
In order to allow developers to better utilize these features during the development process, Epic officially announced that the Matrix Awakens City Sample Project will be made public for free at this event.
Officially, this project shows how to create this experience using the new and improved systems in Unreal Engine 5, including World Partition, Nanite, Lumen, Chaos, Rule Processor, Mass AI, Niagara, MetaHumans, MetaSounds, and Timing Super Resolution, at which point all developers will download it in the Marketplace.
In addition, in order to allow developers to get started with UE5 quickly and invest in product development, at this conference, Epic also announced that it will build a beginner game package "Lyra" in UE5.
According to the official introduction, Lyra is a new beginner game package and a complete, end-to-end multiplayer online game project with built-in modular components and game matching using Epic online services, and it will run on PC, console, and mobile.
At the event, Epic Games' Zak Parrish personally showed how developers can change lighting effects, lighting, mesh structure, and more in Lyra to achieve different effects. He said that the purpose of Lyra is actually to enable people to build their own games based on it.
It is worth mentioning that the application of Unreal Engine has long been more than the game field, and the film and television and broadcasting industries can actually see the figure of this engine, such as the use of Unreal Engine in the shooting of the American drama "The Mandalorian".
Of course, officials also say that some important new features such as Lumen and Nanite have not actually been validated in non-game workflows, and these will be the ongoing goals of future releases.
Developers have come forward to say that a number of games have announced the use of UE5
In addition to the official personal introduction, at this conference, there were also many game company developers who "appeared to say" why they chose UE5 for research and development.
For example, Colin Penty, art director of The Coalition Studio under Microsoft Xbox, said that the cooperation with Epic has brought a very positive impact to the "Gears of War" series, whether it is working together, discussing various systems, contributing code, etc. it is very smooth, they have produced a lot of prototypes and demos.
In addition to The Coalition, cdPR, which has just announced that it will use UE5 to develop a new game for The Witcher, also appeared at the event.
Pawel Zawodny, CTO of CDPR, said he chose UE5 because its support for the open world has attracted their attention, and he is looking forward to the spark of CDPR's open world gaming experience and Epic's engineering capabilities.
Finally, Crystal Dynamics said that the new engine takes the narrative in the game experience to the next level, and at the same time, he also announced a blockbuster message at the press conference that the company is using UE5 to make a new Tomb Raider game.
It can be found that from the official announcement of UE5 to the release of the Early Access Version, and now the official version, a large number of manufacturers have begun to contact and use Unreal Engine. At the event, Epic officials also said that since the release of the Early Access version of UE5, many studios have joined the Unreal Engine 5 community.
In this picture, in addition to PS, Xbox, Remedy and other familiar AAA game manufacturers, GameLook also found 5 Chinese manufacturers, namely: Zulong Entertainment, Perfect World, Game Science, Mihayou (HoYoverse), Tencent.
In fact, it is no secret that the game company that chose to develop the product of UE5 is no secret, and the game project has been exposed early. For example, in August last year, the game science's "Black Myth: Wukong" UE5 live machine demo shined, surprising many players.
Also last year, Tencent's large-scale projects that planned to adopt UE5 research and development were exposed and began to recruit relevant talents on a large scale.
And Perfect World and Zulong held high the banner of Unreal Engine early. For example, last year, Zulong Entertainment announced that the R&D side will fully shift to Unreal Engine, and reached a cooperation with Epic to use Unreal 5 as a strategic layout reserve. On UOD 2021, Zulong Entertainment also released a new game trailer developed using UE5.
As far as Mihayou is concerned, in fact, YoYo Luming of "Artificial Desktop" has been built with Unreal Engine, and it has been rumored that Mihayou's mysterious new game "Project X" is also developed using Unreal Engine.
It is worth noting that the new brand HoYoverse announced by Mihayou at the beginning of this year, and according to HoYoverse co-founder and CEO Cai Haoyu, HoYoverse's mission is to create a content-driven grand virtual world, where games, animations and other entertainment genres are integrated to provide players with a high degree of freedom and immersion.
Jon Carr, technical director of overseas game company Tripwire Interactive, once said bluntly that the emergence of Unreal 5 has reduced developers to spend a lot of time and money dealing with lighting, art assets and other issues, and undoubtedly can narrow the gap between "big factories" and "small factories".
As a result, not only are big players choosing to embrace Unreal Engine, but many smaller or independent game companies are also choosing UE5.
For example, in September last year, Lingyoufang announced that the company was using Unreal 5 to develop two large-scale action/ARPG games that were mainly PC/consoles and may use technologies such as cloud games for cross-platform release.
At the same time, not only PC and host platform products, but also some mobile products developed using UE5 have gradually surfaced.
For example, South Korean game company Netmarble has announced an RPG mobile game created by UE5 and adapted from "Game of Thrones"; and not long ago, Asahi Lightyear also announced that it will publish a survival competitive mobile game "Codename: Spark" developed by Yanlong Games using UE5.
Of course, Unreal Engine is only a tool in the end, and good games ultimately need to be created by good developers, but there is no doubt that the emergence of excellent and practical engines and tools has undoubtedly enabled more excellent developers to land ideas and ideas into the product.
The next generation is coming, and it remains to be seen who will be the next winner.
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