“Everybody has the concept of how briskly a PS5 is and what sorts of video games it will possibly run,” he tells The Verge. “That’s why we particularly wished to go that route of: let’s begin with the consoles, let’s present how a lot we are able to optimize this engine along with Epic and make it work on present gen, as an alternative of operating it on some high-end {hardware}.”
Now, to be clear, the UE5 demo isn’t truly a slice of the ultimate sport. Girbig describes it as “an indication of the instruments that we’re at present constructing that can finally energy The Witcher 4,” and one thing that “does present the fashion and route that we’re going for, and the constancy that we’re aiming at with the ultimate sport.”
In accordance with Girbig, who didn’t work at CDPR till after the shift to Unreal, the choice was made as a result of UE5 “throughout the board, provides us what we’re in search of.” That features an elevated sense of scale crucial for open-world video games, with the power to render tons of of non-playable characters with extra elaborate AI guiding their actions, and in addition a greater manufacturing pipeline for managing a number of initiatives. (An upcoming remake of the first Witcher game is also being made in UE5.)
However from a creative perspective, Girbig says, the transfer to Epic’s engine has a unique sort of influence: getting out of the best way to permit for extra formidable concepts. “It permits an artist to specific themselves rather more simply when the engine isn’t a limitation anymore,” he says. “That’s what we’re aiming for right here. As an artist, for me, this unlocked myself to suppose greater, and on greater scales.”