Unreal Engine 4 Will Make Next Generations Games Look Utterly Mindblowing *First Screenshots*

[zarx]

Zim said:

Oh definitely. A huge amount depends on what Sony and MS do. If they go a more modest route or they try and outmuscle each other to try and make it so it's difficult to port to Wii U. 

Most of my info comes from reading some of the forums where developers or people with contact to them are posting. I do think the Wii U will be a different situation though. Already in this and other threads we have seen some people unable to tell the big differences between UE4 and high tier games from this generation. I have to wonder how big a difference to the mass market being Wii U power or 2-3x times more than that would actually make. 

I do think some confusion from developers about the Wii U's power seems to come from it having some quite specialized things going on. And a lot of gamers who are expecting it to just be the same or less powerful than 360/PS3 will be surprised at what it eventually does. People see the Zelda tech demo and don't think it's a big jump over what we have. However the funny thing about Nintendo is that unlike the other companies their tech demos are actually usually very underpowered compared to what we actually get lol. Usually tech demos are a load of BS and it takes years for games to even get near their quality, whereas Nintendo seem to low ball them lol

Yea it's definitely getting UE3 but I dunno something tells me UE4 is on the cards as well. Now Nintendo and Epic have a dialogue going I imagine Nintendo will be doing EVERYTHING to make sure UE4 works on the WIi U.

For anyone wondering about my zelda tech demo comment here is a great image someone made. 

There is no doubt tht Nintendo has some of the best artists in the business and tech demoes don't usually have great art to go with them (the E3 Zelda demo does have some great art direction tho, the way that the models are built, animation and lighting is used is marsterful which makes me think that other than some AA there probably won't be a huge leap for the Wii U Zelda). Just look at the UE4 demo the clossup shot reveals some poor texture work, but on the technical side it's lighting and particles are byond anything I have ever seen in a game.

I can't wait to see what some talented artists can do with that level of tech, thousands of particles on screen plus fully real-time lighting and shadows should really remove a lot of restrictions for developers as well. Most games today use a lot of time consuming hacks to make games look good, "baking in" lighting and shadows etc and then having a few dynamic elements. A few games this gen have used a mostly real time aproach to lighting and shadows, games like Crysis and Battlefeild 3 but they lack great art direction, and still suffer limitations due to lacking power.

UE4 on Wii U will mostly come down to how scalable UE4 is, of course there is plenty of incentive to make UE4 as scalable as possible because that will mean it can be used on more platforms and they will be able to sell mor licenses. Of course graphics are only a small part of the new engine, Epic will have to (I hope) bring features like live editing across multiple platforms (like Cryengine 3) and other pipeline improvements to Wii U developers. Whether through UE4 or porting those features into an upgraded UE3.

Also one ellement of UE4 that hasn't been shown yet is the inclusion of the latest Apex clothing, phisics bassed animation and PhysX features (including dynamic destruction) that are built in. Which I bet will be showcassed in the E3 reveal video, which I bet are the elements that will blow people away.