I said this in the other thread, but the discussion happening there is also important. Somehow, a tech demo meant to sell the Unreal Engine 5 to developers became the first playable example of what a next-gen console can run. The problem is that it's supposed to show all these new features can put into their games, but it doesn't mean that every game needs or will have (all of) them.
We even got the Art Director for God of War explaining that it would be really hard to build that kind of environment for 30+ hour games, with someone else trying to "well, actually" him. You could argue the UE4 Real-Time PS4 Tech Demo is feasible today, but that's a cinematic from seven years ago. The UE5 tech demo was playable and shown at a consumer event instead of a GDC equivalent, giving the impression it could be its own game.
I worry we'll see expectations that are impossible to meet, or comments about games that should've used UE5 instead because they don't look as great as the tech demo. For a lot of studios, it might be better to implement similar features into new iterations of their proprietary engines; for other popular engines like Unity, they'll also do their own thing; and it can even be an unfair comparison between Unreal Engine games, as the System Shock Remake doesn't need everything Gears 5 has - and they're both UE4 games.
At the end of the day, the best engine for a project is the one that developers know the best. And they can choose to use its unique features, as long as the game runs well and it fits their vision. Not every game will target what the tech demo did, and I hope people understand that.
EDIT: To be clear, I know not everyone has their expectations through the roof. But some do, and that's where my concern comes from.
EDIT 2: I should've made this clearer before as well: this is about the pressure devs will face (and I mean the hateful and/or armchair kind) because some people believe the tech demo is what AAA games will look like from the start of next-gen.
We even got the Art Director for God of War explaining that it would be really hard to build that kind of environment for 30+ hour games, with someone else trying to "well, actually" him. You could argue the UE4 Real-Time PS4 Tech Demo is feasible today, but that's a cinematic from seven years ago. The UE5 tech demo was playable and shown at a consumer event instead of a GDC equivalent, giving the impression it could be its own game.
I worry we'll see expectations that are impossible to meet, or comments about games that should've used UE5 instead because they don't look as great as the tech demo. For a lot of studios, it might be better to implement similar features into new iterations of their proprietary engines; for other popular engines like Unity, they'll also do their own thing; and it can even be an unfair comparison between Unreal Engine games, as the System Shock Remake doesn't need everything Gears 5 has - and they're both UE4 games.
At the end of the day, the best engine for a project is the one that developers know the best. And they can choose to use its unique features, as long as the game runs well and it fits their vision. Not every game will target what the tech demo did, and I hope people understand that.
EDIT: To be clear, I know not everyone has their expectations through the roof. But some do, and that's where my concern comes from.
EDIT 2: I should've made this clearer before as well: this is about the pressure devs will face (and I mean the hateful and/or armchair kind) because some people believe the tech demo is what AAA games will look like from the start of next-gen.
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