Why so few Unreal Engine 4 games announced?

[poohbear]

Hey all, so I'm excited to finally see some AAA next gen games coming out this year on EA's state of the art engine Frostbite 3 (Dragon age 3, Mirror Edge 2, Star wars Battlefront, Need for Speed etc), but why is it that there aren't that many Unreal engine 4 games announced? Dice claims there are 15+ Frostbite 3 games in development, so it seems Frostbite 3 is all the rage, and EA is pushing it heavily which is great for us to see next gen graphics.

But why's there so little interest in Unreal Engine 4 by devs? The last generation saw TONS of Unreal Engine 3 games (half of first person games were pretty much Unreal Engine 3 a few years ago), why the lack of dev support/interest for Unreal engine 4? Is Epic no longer the behemoth it used to be?

 

[xantub]

with the new fees announced for Cryengine by Crytek, it's probably going to be even less

 

[Rakehellion]

But why's there so little interest in Unreal Engine 4 by devs?

Epic just released a new licensing scheme on the 14th of March, so maybe devs will get on board now. https://www.unrealengine.com

Unreal Engine 3 was much easier to get your hands on though, so it could just be a money thing.

 

[Rakehellion]

with the new fees announced for Cryengine by Crytek, it's probably going to be even less

Royalty free is good. Unreal Engine 3 was royalty free for up to 50k unit sales. And Cryengine games are looking better visually too. Seems like they won this round.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Royalty free is good. Unreal Engine 3 was royalty free for up to 50k unit sales. And Cryengine games are looking better visually too. Seems like they won this round.

That depends...UE4 might be easier to use and from what I've seen of it...more advanced in terms of lighting and physics.

I don't really care, it's the games that matter in the end. Crytek hasn't made a really good game in a while using any of their engines and it has never seen much adoption. We'll have to see if devs adopt CryEngine or stick with Unreal Engine. Ryse on XB1 was alright but suffered in the draw distance department due to memory limitations and it also didn't have very impressive lighting IMO. The character models, foliage, and animation was good though.

 

[Rakehellion]

That's another thing. Where's Unreal Tournament 4?

 

[cmdrdredd]

That's another thing. Where's Unreal Tournament 4?

Didn't they say recently they are not doing another UT game?

 

[smackababy]

Didn't they say recently they are not doing another UT game?

I know Cliffy B said he was going to be making an arena shooter, but he isn't part of Epic anymore. It is likely they won't make another UT game, as UT3 was pretty poor and the market for arena shooters is shrinking. The modern gamer was old enough to play even 2k4, let alone appreciate UT99 or UT2k3.

 

[futurefields]

And Cryengine games are looking better visually too.

What are some great looking Cryengine games that aren't made by Crytek?

 

[Attic]

I expect there will be a bunch of games using UE4 and a bunch of stalwarts will put it to good use. I expect a Splinter Cell with UE4 amongst others.

The UE4 demos look amazing, but I was hoping to have UE4 games by first half of 2014....

 

[Red Hawk]

More competition. Unreal Engine 3 ended up being the middleware for seventh console generation games. There was no other major third party middleware out there, and publishers didn't make a big deal about providing their developers with an in-house middleware option. Developers either made their own engine for their games, or they paid for a license to use UE3.

With the eighth console generation, I think there's more of an effort by publishers to provide their developers with an in-house engine and eliminate the need to pay Epic for the license to the Unreal Engine. The biggest example of this is Frostbite; EA owns the rights to the Frostbite Engine, so they're having all their developers use Frostbite so they don't have to pay for the Unreal license or to develop a new engine. One of Epic's most high-profile Unreal licensees in the last console generation was BioWare with the Mass Effect series, but now the next Mass Effect game is going to be made with the Frostbite engine. EA is one of the biggest game publishers today, and all their focus on Frostbite means a lot of lost current market share and potential market share for Unreal.

Aside from first party middleware like Frostbite, Epic has more direct competition from things like Cryengine and the Unity engine. There's still going to be plenty of game developers without a publisher providing them with first party middleware and without the resources to develop their own engine. Those developers will still be looking for third party middleware, but they have more options this console generation than they did in the last. Who will win out? I don't know, only time will tell.

 

[Lil Frier]

I expect there will be a bunch of games using UE4 and a bunch of stalwarts will put it to good use. I expect a Splinter Cell with UE4 amongst others.

The UE4 demos look amazing, but I was hoping to have UE4 games by first half of 2014....

IDK, if they could use Snowdrop (The Division's engine) on Splinter Cell, why hit up another company for an engine?

 

[Lil Frier]

I know Cliffy B said he was going to be making an arena shooter, but he isn't part of Epic anymore. It is likely they won't make another UT game, as UT3 was pretty poor and the market for arena shooters is shrinking. The modern gamer was old enough to play even 2k4, let alone appreciate UT99 or UT2k3.

Shh...don't say that. I grew up watching my dad play UT and Quake, and Unreal Championship on the original Xbox was my first LIVE game. I actually liked UT3 as well, though the arena shooters couldn't get a decent community on consoles once Halo 2 dropped, sadly.

Given that RCT4 is finally going to happen, I figure I can continue to hold out hope for UT4 for at least a few more years (it's only been 7 years since UT3, while the RCT gap is going to end at 10). Plus, with the ridiculous "nostalgia" releases and remakes of the past few years, it's bound to circle around and hit arena shooters soon.

 

[poohbear]

More competition. Unreal Engine 3 ended up being the middleware for seventh console generation games. There was no other major third party middleware out there, and publishers didn't make a big deal about providing their developers with an in-house middleware option. Developers either made their own engine for their games, or they paid for a license to use UE3.

With the eighth console generation, I think there's more of an effort by publishers to provide their developers with an in-house engine and eliminate the need to pay Epic for the license to the Unreal Engine. The biggest example of this is Frostbite; EA owns the rights to the Frostbite Engine, so they're having all their developers use Frostbite so they don't have to pay for the Unreal license or to develop a new engine. One of Epic's most high-profile Unreal licensees in the last console generation was BioWare with the Mass Effect series, but now the next Mass Effect game is going to be made with the Frostbite engine. EA is one of the biggest game publishers today, and all their focus on Frostbite means a lot of lost current market share and potential market share for Unreal.

Aside from first party middleware like Frostbite, Epic has more direct competition from things like Cryengine and the Unity engine. There's still going to be plenty of game developers without a publisher providing them with first party middleware and without the resources to develop their own engine. Those developers will still be looking for third party middleware, but they have more options this console generation than they did in the last. Who will win out? I don't know, only time will tell.

yea i think u hit the nail on the head. All the major publishers have their own next gen engine, so why bother paying Epic to license an out of house engine? EA has Frostbite, Ubisoft has Snowdrop, but what about Activision? Basically, who's the Unreal Engine 4 being marketed to? Small developers probably can't afford the license, so who's the target market for Unreal Engine 4?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Didn't they say recently they are not doing another UT game?

Epic Games has pretty much washed their hands of the Unreal Tournament series. They concluded that no one wants to play arena shooters or UT because their half-finished, buggy, consolized, Gamespy-striken UT3 abomination failed.

 

[imaheadcase]

Because of Unity.

 

[zebrax2]

Between AAA game developers opting for their own game engines, competition with cryengine in terms of graphic fidelity and the increase in popularity of Unity specially with the indie folks i think UE is finding it hard enticing developers to their camp

 

[HeXen]

Cripes it just came out, they are still working on hotfixes of for it. Games will be buggy for a while as well. Engines are too complex for there not to be.
So far there's Fortnite,daylight and Primal Carnage. Besides there are so many developers under larger umbrella's like EA or Ubi that they're gonna either use one of their engines or create their own.
Tech demo's always look nice but never look that good for a game anyway nor could they without some serious hardware. Devs using UE4 isn't likely to produce a game much better looking than with any other modern engine no more so than they ever have before. Even Sniper elite 2 doesn't look near as good or has the effects that Crysis 3 did despite using the same engine. Devs have their focus and their budget, a graphics engine won't really change that other than save some time for an earlier release with likely more bugs.

 

[Revolution 11]

I have heard a lot about Unity games recently, is it really on the same level as CryEngine and Unreal? Is Frostbite as good as these two engines?

The licensing terms for both CryEngine and Unreal seem pretty mild, how much money would EA save anyway for using Frostbite?

 

[Elixer]

Epic is not so epic anymore... rumor going around that they need a cash infusion, and fast.

 

[shortylickens]

Still waiting on Unreal 3.

 

[Carfax83]

Is Frostbite as good as these two engines?

From what I've seen of the Frostbite 3 engine, my answer would be no. BF4 uses prebaked shadows for instance and the lighting isn't fully dynamic. But it's possible that those are multiplayer performance enhancements rather than an indication of what the engine is or isn't capable of.

 

[Lil Frier]

Epic is not so epic anymore... rumor going around that they need a cash infusion, and fast.

I'd imagine they got a decent chunk when they sold Gears to Microsoft (maybe that's the reason they did it).

Really, what do they have going for them now, though? Like people have said, developers aren't using/needing UE4 as much. EA has Frostbite/Ignite, Ubisoft has Snowdrop, and the first-party folks probably have their own stuff, in addition to the fact that some (like Respawn) use Source. UE4 might be new, but we're also seeing less of a need from major developers to use it.

On top of that, what do they have for games? They sold Gears, Unreal isn't coming, nothing. Of course you're going to need money when you are a game company with no meaningful games on the horizon and an engine that major teams might not even have a need for.

 

[HeXen]

From what I've seen of the Frostbite 3 engine, my answer would be no. BF4 uses prebaked shadows for instance and the lighting isn't fully dynamic. But it's possible that those are multiplayer performance enhancements rather than an indication of what the engine is or isn't capable of.

devs can also code whatever they need to in. I still consider Cryengine 3 and Frostbite 3 both to be current gen engines, they were built with a strong focus on 360 and PS3 multiplay development and overall only offer a few enhancements and fixes over the previous versions which were more focused on PC. It appears they retooled the newer versions so they could output console versions without having to actually port it or recreate it and added some DX11 features and few tweaks. Not really an entirely new next gen engine imo.

For example, Cryengine 2 was purely from scratch, Cryengine 3 was really more of an evolution. Meanwhile UE3 evolved just as much except they called it 3.1, 3.2..etc instead of 4. Other engines often use pre existing code and are just renamed, like the Dunia engine.

Much of it all is just marketing really and tech terminologies and demo's just add to that by getting gamers excited about an engine in hopes devs will license it for their games...it's like pre hyping a game that will get hyped even further just before release or maybe the intent is to hype it for devs but seems it hypes up gamers more than devs.

 

[Fire&Blood]

Ubi has at least 3 in house engines, they are spending a lot of money but they are also pumping out games like crazy. Both Epic and Crytek have to be concerned about their futures considering their portfolios. Both got some cash from Microsoft, Epic for selling Gears and Crytek for doing Ryse but there is little else going on. The biggest 3rd party engine user right noe is Star Citizen but that deal won't make a dent in Crytek's expenses. Going after Unity seems like a desperate move even if it works, there isn't enough money in indie devs to sustain the giants. They need in house bestsellers but none seem to be on the horizon.