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Dallinor on 29 April 2009
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NJ5 said:
Reasonable said:
NJ5 said:
Dallinor said:
Can you imagine all Sony's first party games running on the Unreal Engine?

There's already a problem this gen with dozens of games looking similar to each other, despite having different devs, because they're all using the same engine.

Creating an engine from scratch allows the devs to create a truly unique looking title that effectivly has it's own identity as a result.

Mirror's Edge is based on UE3 and it doesn't look similar to any other UE3 game AFAIK.

 

ME is more of an exception than the rule though, IMHO. A lot of U3 games do look similar, in the same way you could tell when various ID engines were running under something.

Using engines is a great way to cut costs, but it can result in games looking similar. Funnily enough ME is a game I think would have benefited more from a custom engine due to its nature - using Unreal Engine I think resulted in too much of a linear set of levels vs more of a sandbox engine like GTA IV or Assassin's Creed.

It did look fabulous though in terms of the colour scheme and textures I thought.

I think that due to PS3 architecture, at least initially, didn't lend itself well to engines like Unreal, as many games poor performance on the console (at least initially) testified.

I suspect that's because when developers reuse an engine, they usually just work with it in the easiest way possible. If they went a bit further to customize the engine as Mirror's Edge developers did, it would probably not be too expensive to give their games an original look.

In other words, there should be a middle ground between the two extremes of making a whole engine from scratch and reusing a whole engine without any customization. Mirror's Edge got it right.

 

It appears DICE didn't just delve deep into the engine:

"The game uses Epic's Unreal Engine 3 rather than DICE's own Frostbite Engine because the development of Mirror's Edge began before Frostbite's development was complete. Beast, a new lighting system developed by Illuminate Labs in association with DICE, was added to the Unreal Engine in order to accentuate the different art style of Mirror's Edge and allow for the reflection of colours as well as light."

~Wikipedia

So the only reason UE3 was used was because DICE hadn't finished development on their own engine yet. So the decision wasn't based on expense, there just wasn't another option at the time.

They also added a lighting engine to UE3 to create a unqiue look for the game, which is perhaps why it stands out from so many other UE3 games.