Unreal Engine 5 – Realtime Demo Released
Epic Games have been heaping treats on gamers this week. The most important being the release of an Unreal Engine 5 realtime demo, shown running on a pre-production PlayStation 5. It’s safe to say that the future of gaming has never looked more stunning. There were a few accusations thrown at Epic that the demo had hidden loading times behind a narrow cave section. The developers came back to say that that section was included to show the details of the rock up close. If you look at the full length of the demo, had it been to hide loading times it would more likely have been placed at the end of the internal environment before the high-speed outdoors section. So, I’m inclined to believe them. It has already been announced the PlayStation 5 will run on SSD rather than the traditional HDDs that the current generation have which will lead to vastly increased read times, so it’s not inconceivable that games could be run to this detail without loading times as claimed by the Unreal 5 development team.
The Unreal Engine 5 is due to be released near the end of 2021, so there is some time to wait and will come with new tools for developers and Epic have also announced that developers who use the game engine will not need to pay them a penny in royalties until the revenues from their game crosses the $1 Million mark, which is great news for Indie developers.
Grand Theft Auto 5 – Free until 21st March
If you fancy your treat now and not in 2021 then the Epic Store is currently giving away Grand Theft Auto for free. All you have to do is claim it from their store by May 21st and it’s yours to keep. They have been giving away free games every week as part of their MEGA sale 2020. These free titles are available for PC and Mac gamers only. The inclusion of Grand Theft Auto 5 as one of these free titles has led to speculation that a Grand Theft Auto 6 announcement might be just around the corner. However, it could also just be to attract more customers to their store or to drive up online numbers on GTA 5 so best not to get your hopes up just yet. If you’re interested then feel free to check out the trailer but remember you only have a couple of days left to grab it.
