Unreal Engine 5.2 Preview

Starting as an informal gathering of 25 developers in the living room of game designer Chris Crawford in 1988, the conference has become one of the most significant events in the gaming industry.

From year to year, GDC continues to identify market innovations and give an idea of the future of games. Game developers, publishers, investors and other industry professionals discuss the latest trends and new technologies, as well as share their experience and knowledge.

One of the interesting events of GDC 2023 was demonstration of the Unreal Engine 5.2 from Epic Games.

The demonstration included driving off-road on an electric Rivian R1T pickup truck, and the location was a photorealistic jungle, where the entire environment reacted properly to the movement of the car due to the Chaos physics engine. The demonstration began with a scene of wild nature under the bright sun: the Nanite virtual geometry system in Unreal Engine not only copes with drawing leaves, but also ensures their natural interaction with other objects.

The car model itself was provided by Rivian and had about 71 million polygons, but was rendered in real time thanks to Nanite technology.

The engine realistically simulated the passage of the car down to individual stones and water splashes flying out from under the wheels. The pickup also acted as a model to demonstrate the new Substrate component responsible for displaying various materials — the car was quickly "repainted" to simulate an opal coating, and Unreal Engine 5.2 showed what it is capable of when visualizing even multilayer materials. The opal began to shimmer as the camera moved, and a layer of dirt remained on the surface of the body. Usually, artists have to contact programmers to make such changes, but now it can be done independently in real time.

The electric car drove a little further, came out into an open area, which became stage for the most impressive part of the demonstration. Representatives of the company said that only a small fragment of the terrain (about 200 × 200 m) was created manually, and the rest appeared thanks to the "procedural generation" tool using AI. The manually created fragment was moved, and the whole scene was quickly rebuilt, filling the gaps with puddles, stones and foliage. The scene created by AI stretched for about four kilometers, and it was not copying and pasting identical fragments, but the terrain that looks quite organic.

Trailers of eight games that are being developed on Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5 were also presented. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Luna Abyss and Forever Skies are being prepared for release on UE4.

There are 5 bigger projects on Unreal Engine. The Mexican studio Horizontal Entertainment showed a trailer for Witches of The New World. MMORPG fans may like Night Crows from the South Korean publisher Wemade. Abyss World, an action RPG, is also in development. And you can pay attention to Criminals Within and Two Falls.