Unreal Engine 5, [UE5 Developer Availability 2022-04-05]

[cheapchips]

Seems like a good move. Replicating Halo's feel within UE5 should be more sound path forward than trying to bring modernity to Slipspace. They'll also get to take advance of a sweet coalition with The Coalition.

This is a 4k video, for what it's worth. Lest we forget, the original Slipspace reveal was really nice looking too.

Official blog post / interview:

Halo Studios: New Name, New Engine, New Games, New Philosophy - Xbox Wire

news.xbox.com

I wish they weren't growing the studio. Do it super lean!

 

[cheapchips]

They did say this in the blog re: Foundry demo

So what does Foundry represent? The team is clear that this is not a new game – but nor is it a traditional tech demo. It isn’t just an exploration of what’s possible with this engine – it’s a true reflection of what would be required for a new Halo game using Unreal, and a training tool for how to get there. Foundry has been made with the same rigor, process, and fidelity as a shipped game would be.

“Where this type of work’s been done historically, across the industry, it can contain a lot of smoke and mirrors,” explains Matthews. “It sometimes leads players down paths where they believe it’s going to be one thing, and then something else happens. The ethos of Foundry is vigorously the opposite of that.

“Everything we’ve made is built to the kind of standards that we need to build for the future of our games. We were very intentional about not stepping into tech demo territory. We built things that we truly believe in, and the content that we’ve built – or at least a good percentage of it – could travel anywhere inside our games in the future if we so desire it.”

 

[iroboto]

Seems like a good move. Replicating Halo's feel within UE5 should be more sound path forward than trying to bring modernity to Slipspace. They'll also get to take advance of a sweet coalition with The Coalition.

This is a 4k video, for what it's worth. Lest we forget, the original Slipspace reveal was really nice looking too.

Official blog post / interview:

Halo Studios: New Name, New Engine, New Games, New Philosophy - Xbox Wire

news.xbox.com

I wish they weren't growing the studio. Do it super lean!

It’s an interesting business case to watch unfold. Firstly, I think there is a lot of truth that if there is no Halo, there is no Xbox. And Blam was taking too long renaming it to slipspace didn’t solve any issues, and we know this to be true, Blam is the reason Destiny shipped in the state it was and it was made by Bungie!

They cant have Halo only release once per generation, 1 attempt only per generation is too much risk. Focus away from esports and GaaS and just deliver the Halo SP experiences that people grew up playing in coop etc. I think there is a whole population of kids that have never played Halo, and they’ve been looking at Nintendos model for some time and I know Phil has wanted it. I don’t know if the art direction of Infinite was designed to appeal to minors, but their core audience was 30-40 and they just expected something else.

So owning ABK, you’ve got this other model, COD that releases a new one annually. And you can’t do that without a massive studio.

So they have to staff up.
Some things I see them doing:
Remaking Halo games because it’s easier and it’s 20 years old now, the kids don’t really know what it’s about.

They will also be working on advancing the main story.

Other side projects.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

And the reasons are those mentioned - business reasons, not engine reasons. But these same reasons will be applying to other in-house engines, which is a bit of a shame for engine and technology diversity.

 

[cheapchips]

And the reasons are those mentioned - business reasons, not engine reasons.

I think you're leaning into engines just being renderers here?

The tools / build part of Slipstream were clearly dysfunctional during Infinite's development, based on those reports we had. If those issue were truly resolved by the end, 343i would have been putting out post launch content at a much faster pace.

For Halo 7 development, you'd have to have real confidence that you could put those Slipstream tool / build issues to bed really quickly. It seems like this is a much harder challenge than adding new rendering features? (see Frostbite etc)

 

[Frenetic Pony]

Seems like a good move. Replicating Halo's feel within UE5 should be more sound path forward than trying to bring modernity to Slipspace. They'll also get to take advance of a sweet coalition with The Coalition.

This is a 4k video, for what it's worth. Lest we forget, the original Slipspace reveal was really nice looking too.

Official blog post / interview:

Halo Studios: New Name, New Engine, New Games, New Philosophy - Xbox Wire

news.xbox.com

I wish they weren't growing the studio. Do it super lean!

I mean it looks great. But Halo has 10x worse problems than not having pretty art. Getting things like local co-op back, just rebooting the story cause yeesh who f* is paying attention anymore, and making any campaign as good as Halo Reach (leave alone the lofty goal of Halo CE) again would serve even better than prettiness.

 

[Karamazov]

did they ever release that RT update that was promised at launch ?

 

[cheapchips]

I mean it looks great. But Halo has 10x worse problems than not having pretty art. Getting things like local co-op back, just rebooting the story cause yeesh who f* is paying attention anymore, and making any campaign as good as Halo Reach (leave alone the lofty goal of Halo CE) again would serve even better than prettiness.

Sure, those things are more for a Halo than UE thread though. Unreal's improved development tools over Blam/Slipspace gives them a chance of not being quite so dysfunctional.

Can you even do local splitscreen with Lumen on current gen? It feels like it's a tall order for both GPU and memory. Also the upscaler having to work for some scale resolution of half or even a quarter of the screen. Ew!

(Although perhaps not that bad since CE multiplayer was fun in 240x220 quarters)

 

[Dictator]

did they ever release that RT update that was promised at launch ?

Yes, RT shadows that only work in Multiplayer lol

 

[Frenetic Pony]

Sure, those things are more for a Halo than UE thread though. Unreal's improved development tools over Blam/Slipspace gives them a chance of not being quite so dysfunctional.

Can you even do local splitscreen with Lumen on current gen? It feels like it's a tall order for both GPU and memory. Also the upscaler having to work for some scale resolution of half or even a quarter of the screen. Ew!

(Although perhaps not that bad since CE multiplayer was fun in 240x220 quarters)

That's kinda the point, a bit? That all this concentration on tech once again misses what I, and I suspect many, miss about Halo. Sure these art tests look great, and the last Halo to look great was 4, but maybe there's other priorities.

 

[DavidGraham]

Powerful examples of the difference between software and hardware Lumen in Silent Hill 2 Remake.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842964017557688623

 

[Kaotik]

Powerful examples of the difference between software and hardware Lumen in Silent Hill 2 Remake.

It says rt off/on, where does it say "off" is software lumen (it's literally not rt off)

 

[Remij]

It says rt off/on, where does it say "off" is software lumen (it's literally not rt off)

Well, the setting in the game is "RT on/off". He's calling it what the setting is called.

 

[DavidGraham]

More Software Lumen vs Hardware Lumen differences in the game "The Casting of Frank Stone" and Silent Hill 2 Remake. These are some of the more major differences I have seen.

 

[Charlietus]

More Software Lumen vs Hardware Lumen differences in the game "The Casting of Frank Stone" and Silent Hill 2 Remake. These are some of the more major differences I have seen.

The problem with the darkness in some scenes should really not be there in the first place. The majority of users will play without hardware lumen and gameplay is affected by visibility.

 

[cheapchips]

The Axis Unseen has a demo as part of Steamfest. I've not played it yet, but here's a video.

It's leaning into Nanite with little to no textures.

No idea if it's turned out well or not, but open world visuals like this from a solo dev is really pretty cool I think.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

I really like the look of that game. Hopefully it releases on PS5, because I'll be there day 1 if so.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Nice little comparison between UE 5.0 and UE 5.4

Both builds were compiled using the default settings without any custom optimizations. The only exception is that UE 5.4 build has a custom UI for graphics settings and DLSS support. Both builds are using Hardware Lumen as well.

 

[RobertR1]

Nice little comparison between UE 5.0 and UE 5.4

Well that was an awful experience. Crashes left and right.

 

[Karamazov]

some nanite/lumen on mobile anyone ?