Epic reveals its next-generation vision

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 3 March, 2011

"And it's ready today."

Epic Games has unveiled its vision of what the next-generation will look like using Unreal Engine 3.

The Gears of War maker has released screenshots, below, of the kind of visuals it believes it will create not on the current generation of machines, but what follows the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

At a behind-closed doors presentation at the Game Developers Conference last night, Epic showed a video showcasing the impressive technology.

"It represents this beautiful vision of what we should be able to do," Epic vice president Mark Rein told Eurogamer.

"What's really exciting about seeing this love letter to hardware manufacturers is understanding how Unreal Engine goes from iPhone right up to the most ass-kicking PC you can buy that's hopefully representative of what the next-gen might be. And it's ready today."

Epic has seen huge success with its game building technology Unreal Engine 3.

Many game publishers and developers license the tech, which Epic uses to make Gears of War and Bulletstorm for home consoles and Infinity Blade for iPhone.

"Other people are trying to catch up with where were a couple of years ago," Rein said.

"We're continually upgrading the engine and improving it. Every year we're coming up with amazing features and showing some really spectacular stuff.

"We have the game of the year on iPhone. Bulletstorm is doing really well. We were the only middleware shown at Sony's NGP event in Japan. We're really happy with our position in the marketplace."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 1 year ago

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  • ChthonicEcho #1 1 year ago

    Yes, Unreal Engine 3 (specifically Unreal Tournament 3) also had gorgeous screenshots and tech showcases, and then it turned out to be nowhere near the level of promised quality. Closer to release, they even shamelessly prettied the screenshots up with Photoshop.

    Sorry, Epic, but you're not the key player in the field of innovation. Today, DICE and Crytek are the only ones pushing the envelope. It's sad that Crytek are pulling their punches for fear of unsightly system requirements and consoles, considering what CryEngine 3 can do in real-time.

  • Widge #2 1 year ago

    Game of the year on the iPhone? Seriously, that can’t be Infinity Blade?!

  • Seoh #3 1 year ago

    How about you bring this to the PC then and have us finially use all that processing grunt we've been building up over this generation.

  • inutaihanyou #4 1 year ago

    Well, i hope that the next generation of consoles, whatever they turn out to look like, changes the console landscape the same way every other console generation did. I'm hoping we haven't gotten to "that point".

  • PeterM #5 1 year ago

    Just what developers need, even higher production costs.

  • octavedoctor #6 1 year ago

    note: everything is dark and black, it's easy to make graphics look better with low lighting. (trick I used to use on my old AHL maps)

    also to me doesn't look that much different from gears etc now?

  • FladgeMangle #7 1 year ago

    "We're continually upgrading the engine and improving it"

    Considering the apparent and comparably low quality of the PS3 version of your engine, I hope some of that effort is going in the direction of platform specific optimizing and not just obvious direct x shader playtime.

  • abigsmurf #8 1 year ago

    All this tech but can they create a character who knows how to shave?

    Anyhow, Crytek embarassed themselves with the DX9 fiasco of Crysis 2. They consider themselves a PC showcase developer yet their main franchise is being released using 4-5 year old rendering tech with most of the new features in graphics cards from the last 4 years going unused.

  • waynenot #9 1 year ago

    Reminds me of Syndicate.

  • Essien #10 1 year ago

    UE3 - causes serious lung cancer

  • coolbritannia #11 1 year ago

    That 'gorgeous' screenshot in post 1 is pretty accurate, looks like Bulletstorm level graphics to me.

  • yoomazir #12 1 year ago

    nice pictures, upcoming game maybe or just some showoff video?

  • teh_MBK #13 1 year ago

    @coolbritania
    Yeah, I'd agree that shot looks reasonably representative. I haven't played UT3 in a while though (mainly cause no one else seems to either). Anyway, yes, CryEngine 3 CAN do all that stuff in real time, but doubtful it'll have acceptably FPS on the majority of gamer PCs. Maybe if you're packing dual 580s or 6900s. Maybe.

    Having said that, I don't actually know for sure, but I'm running on past experiences. Remember how nice Crysis looked? Almost nobody could run that. Oblivion (on release) was a demanding game too.

    What I liked most about the UE3 shots was not really the beauty (as has been said, hard to gauge on dark screens), but if the DX11 mesh displacement is real time, that could lead to some amazing gaming moments. I really wish DX11 consoles would come out soon, no developer is going to spend the time and money exploiting DX11 features to any large extent just for the PC market. Only exceptions I've noted are Metro2033 and Stalker:COP (which was PC only anyway) devs, who managed to give us tessellation.
    Edited by teh_MBK at 03/03/11 @ 10:55

  • darkmorgado #14 1 year ago

    Don't forget that Epic have a habit of using in-development game assets to show off new tech (remember the Locust used in the UE3 tech demo long before GOW was revealed?). So this could indicate a gritty cyberpunk game is in the works.

    Which would be a nice change from the dull-as-dishwater bromosexuality in GoW.

  • teh_MBK #15 1 year ago

    darkmorgado, I like that observation. Can't have too much cyberpunk :o).

  • CaptainKid #16 1 year ago

    Need bigger screenshots.

    It's funny; I saw a tech video of Unreal video some 5 years back and was really impressed.
    Either the games don't fully utilize the engine or I've gotten used to it but I'm not impressed by the visuals of today's consoles at all.

  • ChthonicEcho #17 1 year ago

    @teh_MBK

    Yes, Crysis was unreasonably demanding, not in the least because it pushed the boundaries of hardware and software capabilities, but because it lacked somewhat in optimisation (something Crytek admitted and something Crytek aimed to address with CryEngine 3). But isn't that the whole point of innovation? You can't innovate if you ignore contemporary conventions and leap forward. Crysis was meant to innovate tech, not wow with game mechanics or story.

    Not everyone could run Crysis well, yes. But before 2007, there were people who could not run games at all if said games had a version of pixel shaders higher than what their video card supported. Nowadays, you can run games boasting DX11 with DX9 video cards, but that wasn't quite the case in the past. Crysis decimated gaming rigs which you thought could run it on the highest settings, but at the same the game did not leave everyone out.

  • Varsity #18 1 year ago

    There's no way Epic made this. It has colours.

  • fleeboy #19 1 year ago

    These screens do look gorgeous, and from what I've seen of their new engine so far it does have some nice real time effects. The only problem as most people here have noted is that Consoles are holding and will forever hold back engine based innovation. Right now from what I can tell the big games developers are concentrating on Cross Platform engines, not innovation (CryEngine 3 a prime example).

    Until the next-gen consoles are released we will be stuck like a stalling car. You can't blame devs for developing games to make the most money by utilising the widest customer base, but as a PC Gamer I can't help but feel a little bitter towards my console brethren for holding us back.

  • teh_MBK #20 1 year ago

    @ChthonicEcho

    I accept your point. Mine however, is that I am more concerned with what an engine presents in terms how it will benefit my gaming experience, which is surely what most developers want to do, allowing them to make their software as good as it can be for the majority of users.

    Sure, having the tech in place as a sort of "future proofing" is great and the tech is even more amazing for the likes of cinema CGI. However, from a gaming perspective, the majority of what CryTek's showed off in that movie is going to be pretty much useless for a while. Obviously, this isn't what they are thinking about as they want to get the most out of their 3-4 year investment in development time, but in terms of selling licences to third-party developers, the game is still wide open for the new unreal engine, especially when one considers the familiarity with the tools. However, even now that the CryEngine can be run without too many hiccups, how many titles use it?

    Yes, CryTek are technically innovating (which is the point of an engine) to a huge extent, but whether that is more than Epic, we wont know until they release some movies of their new engine. Additionally, whether we'll see any of the innovation in future games depends on the rate of reduction in hardware costs/rate of adoption, I guess (I don't fault either Epic or CryTek for this fact as they can't possibly control it, it just is).

    So, as a third-party dev, I'd probably stick to what I know on an engine that, with current hardware availability, will produce an equally shiny title as a more complex engine I don't know how to code for and can't use the majority of features.

  • Murton #21 1 year ago

    "onsoles are holding and will forever hold back engine based innovation." - I have to disagree there. There's absolutely nothing stopping developers from building new engines and then developing games off of those engines for the growing PC market. In the last couple of years we've seen many new engines in console exclusives that blow UE games out of the water, especially engines specifically written for the PS3 that use its architecture properly. It's just that new engines cost a lot of money and effort to produce, and so developers choose not to, look at the comments from Bowling yesterday regarding a new engine for CoD, it's outdated and really starting to show, but they can't be bothered. Skyrim, still using updated GameBryo despite it being proven time again that it's broken. It has nothing to do with consoles, it's laziness/unwillingness to invest.

    You can't blame devs for developing games to make the most money by utilising the widest customer base - yet many developers don't release on PC or release on PC late, don't offer DLC on PC, withhold DLC on a console, usually PS3 or sell at increased prices on PS3. Doesn't sound to me like they're utilising the widest possible customer base at all otherwise everything would be available to everyone at the same time and the same price.

    but as a PC Gamer I can't help but feel a little bitter towards my console brethren for holding us back - again, consoles aren't holding PC gamers back, developers are. PCs can handle higher resolutions, higher framerates, force V-sync and much more, there's nothing stopping developers from supporting those "features" and including higher resolution assets in the PC SKU as People Can Fly did for Bulletstorm, it's just that some developers are lazy and give you a quick port from the 360, blame the developer for being lazy, not the console for being more popular than your PC despite its limitations.

    I used to be a PC gamer before this gen kicked off and I don't remember having any bitter feelings towards the consoles for allegedly crippling my gaming experience, I'm a PS3 owner so I know a thing or two about crippled experiences but I've never felt bitter towards 360 owners about it, bitter towards the developers that were too lazy to make my version work properly obviously, but never 360 owners. Hate the games, not the players.

    EDIT: emboldened quoted sections for clarity
    Edited by Murton at 03/03/11 @ 12:37

  • mkreku #22 1 year ago

    One thing Unreal Engine seems to lack is map size. All games using UE technology has tiny maps (that I can think of). Crysis had gigantic, beautiful maps, games like GTA4 even bigger.

    I'm much more impressed by a big, beautiful world, than one room-sized map with gorgeous graphics.

  • Raiko101 #23 1 year ago

    As nice as they all look, I find myself hoping for more next gen, otherwise whats the point?

  • darleysam #24 1 year ago

    I hope and pray those are from a game in development, because I love the style. I will buy whatever platform it is available for.

  • infernox1 #25 1 year ago

    @chthonicecho, you ruined it by saying DICE. battlefield 3 really doesnt look that great, its just a good use of lighting. high temple 3d mark demo plox

  • FooAtari #26 1 year ago

    So, all games will look like everything is made out of plastic?