The cutting edge technology that I find myself most excited for is the Unreal 5 Engine. To see the capabilities of it after 2020’s E3 unveiling, I can only imagine what the games of the future will be like! Short of smelling your environments, we’re already pretty much at the point where games are being brought to life (via VR devices). But, what’s the point of having a fancy VR system, unless the graphics knock your socks off? Unreal 5’s “triangle rastorization” technique is the answer to that question.
Why is Unreal 5 such a big deal? What makes it exciting? Well, not only does the use of triangles over pixels offer more intricate detail, but the engine itself was developed with Next Gen (PS5, XSeriesX) in mind. It will be able to support real-time rendering without loss of detail, unlike previous engines before it, which also discards the need for static environments (which may look good, but limit the amount of interaction between the gamer and the game). Having immensely-detailed, dynamic environments was unheard of in the past–especially with he promise of such smooth gameplay. It seemed like a gamer’s wildest dream before the 2020 unveiling. Now, not only is it a confirmed reality, but Unreal 5 is dropping in 2021!
Unreal 5’s creators, Epic Games, have been developing and perfecting this technology for eight years now, after the overall success of their previous game engine, Unreal 4. At E3, they showed off a cutting-edge PS5 demo while explaining the intricacies of their work. In addition to explaining the triangle rastorization, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney claimed that the way their engine handles data storage will lead to “state of the art performance, better than any gaming PC.” That is quite a bold statement, given that PC’s have towered over their console counterparts for years due to near-limitless capabilities and storage options. This could be a potential drawback–over-hyping a product before it’s been released is a dangerous game. We won’t know for sure until it happens. Regardless if his claim was too bold, the work did speak for itself. After watching the demo, I know for certain that we are entering a whole new era of gaming history–and as graphics and VR technologies continue to improve, there’s no telling what the games of the future may look (and who knows, maybe smell?) like!
For fun, here is the E3 Unreal 5 demo: https://youtu.be/d8B1LNrBpqc
Works Cited
https://www.yosoygames.com.ar/wp/2020/05/millions-of-triangles-like-in-ue5/