Unreal Engine 4 Showcases Next-Gen Dreams

The elemental trailer for the Unreal Engine 4 is a taste of what could come from next-generation consoles and high definition PC performances. Premiering yesterday to showcase the next level of the Unreal Engine, developed by Epic Games, the fourth version chose a snowy and crumbling landscape to start on. The slow process of the great stone and lava beast waking up, along with his castle, is an incredible sight. It becomes mind blowing when you consider this is ideally in-game footage, and not just pre-rendered cut scenes.

When Game Informer interviewed Epic Games Design Director Cliff Bleszinski for their story on Gears of War: Judgment, he explained what he intended to do with the newly designed engine. Going over the lighting aspects alone, he said, "When you look at the way that the lighting works, and the fact that you can immediately  blow off a roof and immedately have lighting pour in and bounce properly is exciting. You can consider things like realistic day/night cycles and weather effects,things like that, that could have a really interesting impact on gameplay."

Technical aspects aside, the use of particles could inspire brand new destructive environments or even redefine how physics can be rendered in real time gaming. The engine's primary effect from Bleszinski? To free up developers to work on rendering and producing the best effects that will go past what has an "gamey" sheen but will later become as real as the uncanny valley will allow.

Square Enix's demo for Agni's Philosophy showcased their own next-gen capabilites during e3.

There are technical details, like Unreal Kismet and how you can tweak the editing in real-time, but let's face it. We all want to be able to slay that demon as soon as the future shows up.