Cary, North Carolina-based video game developers Epic Games has revealed that their first Unreal Engine 4 powered title will hit the store shelves next year.
The new announcement was made in the latest interview of Epic Games’ president, Mark Rein, with Joystiq. And as per Rein, Epic will release an Unreal Engine 4 powered game next year, though he does not know exactly when.
“It’s certainly important for us to have our flagship game. That’s the game for which we develop the engine. Gears of War was the game for which Unreal Engine 3 was developed, and so shipping that has a huge significance for licensees and for us. I think, for Unreal Engine 4, there’ll certainly be a couple of games,” Rein said.
The new game, according to a DSOGaming report, could be a PC exclusive title that Epic has in store for its fans as next-generation consoles are not really expected as soon as in 2013.
Epic had previously released screenshots of the upcoming Unreal Engine 4. The images showed how impressive the next generation Unreal Engine is and what this means for the future of gaming. As per the screenshots, the new engine is expected to reach higher grounds with improved particle effects and environment rendering.
In a previous interview where online gaming magazine Wired discussed about the new engine with Epic Games co-founder Tim Sweeney and design director Cliff Bleszinki, Sweeney revealed that instead of the “pre-rendered” light sources of the past (which the developers had to hand-place in each level), UE4 enables “dynamic lightning.”
What this will do is that it will make light sources conscious of their surroundings and now light, in the game, will bounce off reflective surfaces, water will refract vision and shadows will be generated in real-time instead of requiring individual placement. It is said that it will also remove “bake time” (the duration current engines need to process and parse through light sources before they are rendered in-game).
Wait, there’s more!
Unreal Engine 4 is also set to introduce Kismet 2. Kismet 2 is the enhanced version of Unreal Engine 3’s graphics scripting tool. The tool’s aim is to make programming easier for novices and stronger for experts. This interface will let you manipulate visual elements using simplified drop-down menus instead of constructing lines upon lines of complicated code.
Remember to check out the UE4 screenshots.
