Epic announces Unreal Engine 5 for release next year

Epic Games has announced Unreal Engine 5. The new engine should enable detailed game worlds and more advanced lighting in scenes. Unreal Engine 5 will be released next year, first as a preview version.

The most important new techniques are called Nanite and Lumen, says Epic. Nanite allows developers to import billions of polygons directly into the game simultaneously, including ZBrush objects and CAD data. Also, thanks to Nanite, it is better possible to build complex scenes with millions of objects in view at the same time, something that is more difficult with Unreal Eninge 4. Lumen is the technology that automatically adjusts the lighting according to new events in the game, such as a sun breaking through or a lamp coming on.

Thanks to these new techniques, it should be possible to conjure up graphics on the screen that approach CGI images from films and that look more realistic than is currently possible. The new engine is forward-compatible, so developers can already make games and use that code later in Unreal Engine 5. The preview of the new engine will be released next year, with a release later in 2021.

The engine will work on the current generation of consoles, as well as the PS5 and Xbox Series X. In addition, the engine will support Windows and macOS on desktop and Android and iOS on mobile.