System Shock - Why Unreal Engine 4?

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PCGamesN asks Nightdive why they switched from Unity to Unreal Engine 4 for the System Shock Remake.

TriOptimisation

There were two important considerations behind the engine swap. First, after conversations with both Epic and Unity, Nightdive decided Unreal Engine 4 would be the better choice for hitting their performance targets on consoles. And second, more pertinent for our purposes, was the team. Nightdive have hired a bunch of "very senior" developers, a number of whom worked alongside game director Jason Fader at Obsidian on Fallout: New Vegas.

"These guys had more Unreal experience than Unity experience," explains Fader. "And instead of having them get up to speed on Unity, it made more sense with what we had in the pipeline to go with an Unreal ecosystem."

Thankfully, Nightdive were able to pull over a "good chunk" of the work they'd already done in pre-alpha.

"The code doesn't really translate, but the core fundamentals of the system we were working on definitely do map over," says Fader.

[…]
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Well, if the alternative is Unity - then the question sort of answers itself :)
 
The alternative is not going for cash grab. And it answers itself.
Gaming industry became obsessed with milking with remakes/remasters/reboots just like Hollywood.
 
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I think it's more than that, corporations only care about buy up IPs and sitting on them. These are small companies than recognize how good these games are and remakes accomplish two major goals.

Reinvigorate the IP, believe it or not, a huge number of gamers have never played these games and often can't because they don't have the knowledge to get them running on modern systems. Or sometimes, great games had frustrating systems and no Tutorials, to explain them. Secondly, because small developers are much more customer friendly and want their customers to enjoy the game. Not only, to tell their friends, but to be repeat customers for sequels.

Corporations like ea don't care if you like it or it's fun, they just want your money. Small developers actually visit forums, ask for suggestions and make changes. I've always advocated for Unreal, because of it's ability to scale to different systems, while still being one of the most beautiful rendering engines I've seen. Hell, I still remember advocating PB use Unreal for Gothic 3 before it was made, more than 12 years ago, back at the Dot.
 
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I always thought the biggest advantage to Unity was that it was cheap. Are there actually any others?

Right, I think the U4 engine costs 10 of 1000's of dollars, especially on console.

The difference here is they have devs that know it and don't want to learn Unity. A cost/benefit analysis, even at the top of their head, probably thinks this is the cheapest option.

Don't be fooled. Small developers want to make lots and lots of money too.
 
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Unity reminds me of Java.

A lot of people swear by it - and claim it's perfectly capable of great performance.

It's just that I've never seen an example of that in real life ;)

Since I'm all about pragmatism and not much of a theory guy - I'm not the biggest fan of Unity for games that rely on making a strong visual impression.
 
Unity reminds me of Java.

A lot of people swear by it - and claim it's perfectly capable of great performance.

It's just that I've never seen an example of that in real life ;)

Since I'm all about pragmatism and not much of a theory guy - I'm not the biggest fan of Unity for games that rely on making a strong visual impression.

Oh look, I agreed with Dart.

Unity is also really weird to program in. It supports C# and Javascript, yes, but its its own thing, with its own techniques of doing things. You really have to know the Unity library and how the toolset works.

U4 is free to use since 2015, they now take a 5% royalty on profits above $3000/quarter.

Ah, that's interesting. When I looked at it back in the day for Android they were reserving it for a big price tag IIRC.
 
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I don't give a rat's ass why they switched. :)

All I know is that I'm glad they did, and this is my most anticipated game for 2018 by far.
 
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UE4 is okay. Problem is their video from months ago looked like C-R-A-P compared to the absolutely awesome pixelated Unity demo.
 
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azarhal beat me to the news Unreal is Free, especially for indie developers.

Bloodlust Shadowhunter was made by one guy and he used Unreal 4. It actually runs very well. I highly recommend the game if your like dungeon crawlers and vampires. Factions, with lots of Choice and Consequence, not to mention you can Sire enough to create your own Clan.
 
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It's just that I've never seen an example of that in real life ;)
Layers of Fear and Osiris New Dawn come to mind. Also Tyranny and Tides of Numenera both run on Unity. And Pillars of Eternity. And Wasteland 2 (although I can't argue that it looks beautiful).
Cities Skylines runs Unity as well, if I remember correctly.
 
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Layers of Fear and Osiris New Dawn come to mind. Also Tyranny and Tides of Numenera both run on Unity. And Pillars of Eternity. And Wasteland 2 (although I can't argue that it looks beautiful).
Cities Skylines runs Unity as well, if I remember correctly.

Haven't played the first two. But the rest I wouldn't call reliant on a strong visual impression - but all three of PoE, Torment and Wasteland 2 ran much worse than they should given how they look and what's going on.

For something like System Shock - I would definitely worry about performance even more, as it's obviously going to rely on the visual impression a whole lot more than turn-based or RTwP RPGs.

I'm not saying Unity isn't a fine engine for a certain kind of game - but just imagine something like Witcher 3, Mass Effect or Prey running on it.

I shudder to think of that!
 
First, after conversations with both Epic and Unity, Nightdive decided Unreal Engine 4 would be the better choice for hitting their performance targets on consoles.

In a nutshell, PC version to follow console directions…

100% agree with mercy. Unlike JDR13, this is now NOT my most anticipated 2018 release. Hoping to be proved wrong, but not holding my breath.
 
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100% agree with mercy. Unlike JDR13, this is now NOT my most anticipated 2018 release.
I'm happily joining the minority two of you are a part of. Had enough of seeing cashgrabs at the market.
 
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