After what seems to be an eternity, we’ve finally gotten a glimpse at what next-gen consoles and especially the PlayStation 5 will be capable of. Epic Games revealed the new Unreal Engine 5 (UE5), the latest iteration of the game engine and ran a demo that is running in real time on a PS5.
That in and of itself was impressive as is, but once you dive into what the demo actually represents you might be more so appreciative of next-gen gaming. But keep in mind that UE5 will be supported by the current gen-consoles alongside next-gen and PC, Mac, iOS and Android. Which means, better looking games across the board, and it’s coming soon.
Game developers can build games for next-gen console using UE4 and later on migrate to UE5 in the future. Epic Games also announced that they would be doing so with their popular battle royale, Fortnite.
The PS5 tech demo came in the form of a gorgeous, breathtaking world in Lumen in the Land of Nanite, which showcased the two new technologies that make the game possible.
One, as in line with its namesake is Nanite which uses virtualised geometry that allows developers to import film-quality assets and art into Unreal Engine. The second technology showcased in the demo was Lumen, a dynamic global illumination tool which allows realistic light physics among other things.
But what all this essentially means is that next-gen, and even current gen gaming stands to gain from UE5. The insane part of this is the gameplay is showed in real-time, with no pre-rending whatsoever and it’s all thanks to the PS5’s hardware. Have a look at the video, and see the level of detail and just how realistic the demo really is.
Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney explained that the system storage advancements that PlayStation has been working on made this possible.
“But Sony’s made another breakthrough that in many ways is more fundamental, which is a multi-order magnitude increase in storage bandwidth and reduction in storage latency.”
This increase in storage bandwidth allows for larger and more detail scenes than previous generations.
Like I said, it’s a first glimpse at what next-gen gaming will look and feel like. It’s given an understanding the graphic fidelity for real, in-game capabilities for their customers which in turn builds on the hype. Games built on UE5 may not be available as soon as the PS5 releases in the coming months, as UE5 will be available as a preview in early 2021. So, hold out for sometime in 2021-2022 to truly experience next-gen gaming.
