Unreal Engine 5 To Support Current-Generation Consoles And Mobile Platforms

Ok. This can only be good. There are a lot of people that are talented with Unreal Engine.

Don't expect any UE5 games on Switch though, LOL

OK, but are we really going to see any of its benefits on the current Switch configuration? It uses a chip from 2015. That may be expecting too much

HOWEVER, this engines release would coincide perfectly with a switch revision and the release of Metroid Prime 4 and BotW 2. Seeing the benefits of this engine in Zelda dungeons would be REALLY cool

Here before "THIS CONFIRMS THE SWITCH PRO, GUYZ" comments.

porting an engine to the switch and getting games from the engine to run are two different things. UE5 might get ported to the nintendo switch but it doesn't mean UE5 games will, outside of fortnite, that is. The current UE4 games on switch all have something in common: if it's not uneaven frame pacing or framerate issues, it's the resolution that's very low or subpar.

And if UE5 is more demanding. i wouldn't expect the switch to get feature complete games unless they are exclusive projects tweaked to work on the X1 chip and the underclocked hardware the switch has.

Cool, I can see Nintendo using this on future games. Even on the Switch, tbh.

All them triangles...

@ItsOKToBeOK
Zelda BOTW doesn't use Unreal Engine so it's sequel won't use it either.

Prime 4 will likely use its own engine too, likely a heavily upgraded version of the engine that powered the original trilogy.

IIRC The only Nintendo game thus far that uses Unreal Engine is Yoshi's Crafted World. If Good-Feel develops another Yoshi platformer on the Switch, it will almost certainly be developed on UE5. When they develop the next Yoshi platformer on the Switch 2, it will not only be developed on UE5 but will likely utilize the Nanite and Lumen tech as well.

@Jakiboy
Why not?

Epic plans to upgrade Fortnite to UE5 by the end of 2021. They also designed UE5 such that all UE4 games can be upgraded to UE5 without a soft development reboot.

UE5 games on Switch likely won't be using the Nanite rendering and Lumens lighting technology (or at least to their maximum capability) that Epic talked about in that UE5 demo, but there is a lot more to a game engine than graphics rendering and lighting.

Game engine != Graphical fidelity.

Looks good, loads of devs use UE4 so this can only be good news.

Surely the industry where many studios struggle to get more than 2 games out in 8 years really needs this.

@Casual_Gamer95 Based on what we know about UE5, while it's highest capabilities will be more demanding, it should also be more scalable on lower powered devices. So we might see UE5 games performing better than UE4 ones on the Switch, albeit without looking noticeably better if at all.

@westman98

And what makes you so sure they're going to upgrade Fortnite on the Switch? 😂

@SalvorHardin Yeahh, I was thinking that. While better graphics are great they aren't especially necessary and this might just end up costing studios more time and money in the long run.

@Jakiboy Try direct quotes from Epic

Unreal Engine 5 (or as I prefer to call it, Unreal Engine V) huh? Seriously, even if some PS4 titles have similar-looking lighting, the insane amount of detail of that demo was really mind-blowing, and it was running in real time!
I would certainly love to see a Zelda or Xenoblade game with those graphics. Nintendo Switch already has many UE4 titles and they can look incredible on portable mode. I wonder when we will we able to see graphics of this scale on a mobile platform, like... when the Switch Pro/Successor releases, as the first mobile chipset UE4 came was the Tegra K1 in 2014.

"Titles like Fortnite run on UE4" ...is that supposed to be a good thing?

@link3710 So hopefully means UE5 engine games can be optimised better for Switch?

@Jakiboy
Because Epic has upgraded Fortnite on all platforms for the last 2 years and UE5 is planned to support all platforms that support UE4.

@graysoncharles
There is no ambiguity. UE5 will support all platforms that support UE4.

@graysoncharles UE5 looks more scalable than UE4. In UE4 you have to reduce render resolution to get performance out of it on the switch. With UE5 you could just reduce poly count and with it optimizing draw calls the performance could well be better on switch than with UE4. Nanite is going to be very interesting

@Jakiboy Why exactly would Epic not make Unreal Engine 5 compatible with the Switch? It's already their biggest moneymaker next to Fortnite since so many developers use it.

It's also funny how your profile is only a month old and you only have two other comments.

@graysoncharles
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-this-is-next-gen-unreal-engine-running-on-playstation-5

"It (UE5) has the same system targets as UE4, meaning it'll run on anything from the most high-end PCs to old Android and iOS devices, encompassing current-gen consoles too - including Switch."

It should bear repeating, game engine != graphical fidelity.

Epic used PS5 to sell Unreal Engine 5 because of it's ultra fast loading system. Unreal and Unity are notoriously famed for their long loading time, PS5 had solved their problem.

I still think a one size fits all solution for game development is not ideal. Financially it helps, by reducing development time but in the long run your game is yet another mass produced product that's unoptimized and requiring more time to fix than to build. A tailored product customized for a specific platform yielded better results, but game devs are too greedy these days and want their games on all platforms and too lazy to port them individually.

@graysoncharles Yet they still made UE4 work with Switch.

@westman98 Don't forget this part too:
"To maintain compatibility with the older generation platforms, we have this next generation content pipeline where you build your assets or import them at the highest level of quality, the film level of quality that you'll run directly on next generation consoles. The engine provides and will provide more scalability points to down-resolution your content to run on everything, all the way down to iOS and Android devices from several years ago. So you build the content once and you can deploy it everywhere and you can build the same game for all these systems, but you just get a different level of graphical fidelity."

You will need a Next GEN console to get what makes UE5 special. They didn't even bother making a demo for anything else.

Epic already said UE5 is supported on mobile devices, of course Switch can run it. It's stupid to assume that just because it's supported - your system will produce graphics like what they showed in the presentation.

Devs will continue to use UE5 to make simple mobile games and port them to Switch while those that uses dynamic global illumination only works with PS5/XBSX and PC. If they port those games to Switch the lighting will be pre-rendered and baked in, they won't be dynamic and required a lot of work.

This should be interesting.

Hopefully a Super Switch can benefit greatly from it.

Finally, there's a new engine for the next generation.

That character is terrible, but the technology is certainly not to be trifled with.

Who does she think she is, Link?!

Looked amazing. Boring, but amazing!

@AmplifyMJ
Except for the pointy ears, she clearly is Kameo from Rare's "Kameo - Elements of Power". Funny to see her on PS5.

This is really interesting. I haven't bought a console at launch for probably twenty years, but the PS5 might change that. Could this be the first true evolutionary step in gaming for a couple of decades? I really hope so. Their game reel drop in June is going to tell the tale.

While scalability is always a major aspect with Unreal Engine, I would not expect much in terms of Switch UE5 games. So, first of all remember that it is going to be a while, like 2022 at least I wager, before we will see games taking advantage of this on next-gen consoles. So even assuming it's possible to bring one of these games over to the Switch, that will take some time on top of that 2022 window. Assuming it's possible, because even with scalability there are four things here:

1st, this was a 1440p demo running in 30fps on PS5. The gap between PS5 and Switch is ... huge and in terms of the SSD, there is no gap, just different galaxies really.

2nd, Nanite seems to scales with resolution like there is no tomorrow. That might proof to be a ... challenge with a system designed resolutions from -soon- two generations ago.

3rd, I assume that all these assets will make from some very hefty space requirements. That is of course not just an issue with Switch, with theoretical support up to 2TB, but still something to keep in mind.

4th, UE5 will not be the best engine for any game. Simple as that. For many different reasons dev might want to stick with other engines for their projects that might be due to the game being on Switch, but also entirely irrespective of that.

@YANDMAN But when they are planning to release the finished engine at the end of 2021 we will have to wait for games that are truly using the tech, instead of just being ported over from Unreal Engine 4, until at least 2023.

@kalosn I think the key about Lumen is that it is not pre-set, no baked shadows and all that. It's just less work and way more flexible.

What this means is that one day, the Switch will be able to play games made on UE5. It does not mean that those games will look different in any meaningful way to the ones which already exist running on UE4. Nintendo’s philosophy on hardware upgrades is conservative, to put it kindly and respectfully.

@RogerFederer I meant more the awesome climbing skills!

@countzero The fact that the new SSD can read data at nearly five thousand times faster that the current pS4, let's me know enough that even the early games will be pretty tasty. No new console reaches it's porgramming potential until about three years in regardless. We willsee what the June reveal brings. Microsoft already shot themselves in the foot, the field is open to Sony.

Wow!! This is what I call jaw-breaking next gen graphics!

A Switch Pro can't come soon enough

This would certainly come to the ol' Switch but not the graphics innovation and enhancements I reckon.

Unreal Engine 5...man do I keep feeling more and more of a relic of the past. I remember playing the original Unreal 1 on PC in the 90s and that was considered so revolutionary. I was ahead of the curve too because I had the brand new 3dfx VooDoo2 graphics card!

@DeusX Jaw-breaking graphics? I think I'd feel more comfortable with jaw-dropping graphics...

@RogerFederer To me this is pretty clearly Tomb Raider, almost everything in the demo looks straight out of either of the last two games, except that part at the end when she flies.

@Ralek85 Oh yeah, the lighting and shadows are now running in real-time rather than baked, and that comes in full effect when for example, you enter a cave, otherwise the shadows would look completely dark :lol:

@kalosn Yeah, but I was just trying to say, it's not just that it looks better and allows for more variety, but maybe even more importantly, it should cause less effort for developers.

@Ralek85 Oh yeah, that was the most important part, I wish I pointed it out before. That is clearly a big ambition for Epic, to make it even easier to develop with this new engine.

i can expect games like Metroid Prime 4 and the sequel of Zelda Breath of the Wild using a Custom version of UE5 is one of ir Engines or as it primary Engine.

I remember i could run epic citadel ( Unreal Engine 3 demo) on my iPhone 3gs 10 years ago. Also PS Vita could handle UE3 but 3ds could not. In the long run no really game with UE3 in old iPhones or PS Vita. The new UE is no good news for Switch. I don't know how flexible it is but i can't see it run it

@IronMan30 maybe even Metroid Prime 4 can use a Custom version of UE5 as it Engine.

@idtgatt maybe Nintendo already have a game running on a custom version of UE 5, this game is Metroid Prime 4 and maybe Pikimin 4.

This will never look as good on Switch, that's just impossible.

@Jakiboy there will be but not every UE5 game lol