Unreal Engine 5 is Epic Games’ new graphics engine. Introduced in 2020, it is now available for free to all developers. We can see what it has in the belly thanks to several technical demos. Studios are already working on it and the engine should thus be used on the next Tomb Raider or on the new game The Witcher.
The Unreal Engine 5 was officially presented in May 2020 and since then, Epic Games has been giving us information drop by drop. Today, the engine is now accessible free of charge for all developers. A small revolution in the world of video games.
This engine is turnkey for developers and allows them to work quickly and efficiently, as was the case for previous versions. In addition to bringing a much simpler interface to use, the new iteration offers two major innovations : Lumen, a realistic dynamic illumination technology that gives amazing results, but also Nanite, which allows you to add many elements to a universe without overloading the engine. All of this was already shown in The Matrix Awakens demo, released in December on Xbox Series X and PS5. Moreover, the Unreal Engine is flexible, and can run on all platforms, including smartphones.
The Unreal Engine 5 shows what it has in its belly
To praise the merits of its engine, Epic makes available to developers the (gigantic) city of Matrix Awakens (without the Matrix aspect) so that they can work on it, but also Lyra. It is a basic multiplayer FPS exploiting the capabilities of the engine.
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The Coalition (Gears 5), also took advantage of this announcement to show his technical demo called “The Cavern”. We discover landscapes generated with the engine, but also a sequence with an explorer pursued by a strange threat. Here, the goal is to show the effects of light, but also the capacities of Nanite. Precision, it is not a game, but simply a demo. We know that the studio is currently working on its Gears 6 with this engine.
Moreover, several developers have already announced that they are working on new games with UE 5. This is the case of CD Projekt Red, which is abandoning its Red Engine for the next game The Witcher, announced recently. Crystal Dynamics will also use it for the future Tomb Raider. Important clarification: this will be one of the first titles to use the revolutionary engine.
