Gaming has advanced rapidly over the last few decades, with the proof being in the software. More powerful hardware underpins these advances, both for regular computers and home consoles, but if developers don’t make use of the additional potential, that hardware may as well not exist.
You can see this firsthand just by looking at how the graphics have evolved in any given game series or how much more expansive and open game worlds have become. The more baseline software skills are still very relevant. You could read the book on object-oriented software and see how pivotal it is to the world of blocks in Minecraft, for example. Still, for the full-priced games – and even for many indie developers, apparently – Unreal Engine 5 is what will unlock the true next generation of gaming.
Next-gen doesn’t come with new hardware, but rather, new software. There’s been a lot of hype around Unreal Engine 5 for quite some time, even with Unreal Engine 4 performing so well prior. A huge part of this is the suite of tools made available to enhance the crucial testing process. From there, new software is gradually unlocking true next-gen gaming.
The tremendous power of Unreal Engine 5
Unreal Engine 5 was promised to be the bedrock of the next generation of developments on Web 3, from video games to the Metaverse. Epic, the creators of the engine, even offer up the software for free, with a requirement to take a five percent cut on gross revenues over $1 million thereafter. Importantly, this allows even indie developers to utilize the tool to develop games of an even higher quality in certain regards if they wish. It won’t apply to all projects, but those looking for expansiveness and realism will find the answers in the new engine.
Perhaps the headline technology incorporated in Unreal Engine 5 is Nanite. A tool for scaling high-tier visual quality, Nanite is a method of utilizing Virtualised Geometry that generates a level of detail for each cluster that it creates, but then streams its data per where the camera is looking, while also optimizing rendering. As well as Nanite for next-gen aesthetics and performance, there’s Lumen. This new tech adapts the lighting in real-time from a single illumination source, which makes for less work but more realistic lighting on-screen.
Developers can now create movie-quality assets for games that feature polygon counts in the tens of millions, but the power of Unreal Engine 5 goes beyond time-saving, high graphical fidelity tools. Chaos Physics creates more physics-based destructible environments, while the World Partition software makes the program more efficient by only loading sections of the vast game worlds as and when players need to see and interact with them. MetaSounds also leans into this procedural approach, making for dynamic sounds based on in-game events.
Testing at the forefront of Unreal Engine 5
Of course, none of this can be brought to market unless the software developers run rigorous software tests and act to optimize the content. On the Unreal Engine 5 Documents portal, the engine providers freely offer tools to help the testing and optimization process. Naturally, this benefits the brand as products made on UE5 end up looking better, playing better, and overall, being better products.
The testing and optimizing page is loaded with topics, including the Gameplay Debugger, Crash Reporting, Console Variables Editor, and how to use its Oodle compression solutions. Oddle’s a particularly impressive tool. It’s fully integrated in UE5 and lets levels load faster, improves the experience by compressing network packets, and helps to create smaller download sizes for games. Using Oodle Data, Oodle Network, and Oodle Texture is a streamlined way to optimize the total package, with the suite allowing for repeated tests to perfect the process.
Naturally, a big part of the testing process is finding, identifying, and fixing bugs. The Gameplay Debugger Tool (GDT) provided by UE5 offers real-time data as the gameplay takes place to enable accurate and in-the-moment recognition of any issues. Optimizing the testing process, the tool takes all of the data points being shown and categorizes them into one of five areas. As the GDT can be deployed in Play In Editor, Simulate In Editor, or standalone sessions, it’s very much the complete tool for identifying bugs in the software. As well as the many superb tools at a UE5 developer’s disposal, there’s also the chance to run test automation on Unreal Engine.
While it is a fairly complex process, once the test is set up, it’ll make for a much more efficient run, will perform regression testing, and will deliver faster feedback. All of this helps to come together to reduce the costs of testing the game software, and when costs are reduced, particularly indie gaming studios can push their more limited funds towards the creative aspects that will truly sell the games. Of course, for major development studios, the vast testing process being made even a few percentage points cheaper will save copious amounts of cash.
Seeing Unreal Engine 5 come to the fore
Games have come a very long way, and the perfect example of this in all aspects is the Tomb Raider series. Started in 1994 with the latest core entry coming in 2018, the changes across those 11 games to Lara Croft, level design, the environments, gameplay, and expansiveness of the world are colossal. Of course, gamers love all aspects of the series. It’s why both the older Tomb Raider slot game is still popular among the free slots online alongside the much newer Lara Croft: Tomb of the Sun.
The former leans into Lara’s classic look, while the latter is centered on a new mythical adventure with the depiction of Lara in the Survivor prequel trilogy. Like the video games, the difference between these slots is vast, offering significant updates to the gameplay, aesthetics, and features, but they also chronicle the rapid developments of digital gaming. Soon, a new Tomb Raider game will arrive, bridging the Survivor trilogy to the original trilogy, and it’ll arrive having been built on Unreal Engine 5.
There’s a lot of excitement for this, especially because the few games that have been built on UE5 since its April 2022 release have already showcased tremendous strides. Tekken 8, the first triple-A fighting game built on UE5 has crushed the competition, boasting vastly superior visuals, much less input lag, and far better physics. Other major releases set to follow Tekken 8 are Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, Black Myth: Wukong, ARK II, and Dragon Quest XII.
Games built on Unreal Engine 5 are starting to roll out now, delivering what is becoming true next-gen gaming. A huge part of the process for game developers who want to roll out a worthy product is the testing and optimization process, and UE5 even helps to make this aspect both faster and easier thanks to its extensive suite of tools and features.