Game News CD Projekt announce that the next Witcher game is in development using Unreal Engine 5

[thesheeep]

CD PROJEKT RED also provided confirmation that REDengine, the technology which powers Cyberpunk 2077, is still being used for the development of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion.

How technically illiterate has the gaming press become if this is even a question?

Yeah, no shit an expansion is going to use the same engine as the base game

 

[Fargus]

DLCs for CP2077 are out of the window i guess? I don't believe they are actually cooking something

 

[Zeriel]

It sounds like C2077 is getting one expansion and then it's dead. Pretty sad state considering on release they were promising at least 3 expansion packs.

 

[Wunderbar]

How technically illiterate has the gaming press become if this is even a question?

Yeah, no shit an expansion is going to use the same engine as the base game

Prey 2017 was built on Cryengine, while its expansion Typhoon Hunter was built on Unreal.

 

[potatojohn]

Maybe I still have PTSD from 2010 when everything looked like it was smeared with oil because of UE, but I feel that UE is the worst engine.

UE looks like shit, performs like shit, and feels like shit. It also has this weird camera (probably changeable but devs just don't bother) that makes me sick looking around.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

When you fucked up so bad that the only thing you can do is go back to making "Witcher" games

Witcher 1 was great though

 

[Outmind]

Cool. Let's hope for less clunky combat and inventories not filled to the brim with useless crap this time around.

Also, people are really into Ciri being the next protagonist for some reason. I couldn't care less about her so idk what's up with that.

 

[Darkozric]

Let's hope that Putin can correct all of this shit and reset them once and for all before it's too late.

 

[Twiglard]

While using a 3rd party, proven engine will definitely take some strain from development, and make standardized asset creators readily available, close partnership with company as cancerous as Epic, in the long run, will become a crippling shot in the foot IMO. Will see.

It depends on the maximum level of complexity for any given game. For a 2.5D game you absolutely don't need an engine. For 3D you may get away with not having one either, as long as you don't need particularly advanced physics or streaming.

For such cases, it actually takes more effort to learn how to do things the 'engine way' than using, say, axis-aligned boxes for everything like games of the RPG Renaissance did.

 

[El Pollo Diablo]

with UE, unity and some more, there is virtually no reason at all to maintain your own engine unless you are a titan like EA bethesda or ubi.

I disagree. The problem I have with these "modern" engines is that they are not just graphics/rendering engines, they are game engines, in the sense that they already present you the model on which you are supposed to implement game logic. The model is meant to make it easy to implement basic game types engine designers have in mind (e.g. a "first person shooter" template, an <insert popular genre> template etc). If it happens that the game you have in mind can be implemented using that model, you're in luck and can make your game really quickly. If what you have in mind doesn't fit into the engine's model well, then tough luck, your options are:

(a) tearing down most of the engine and do custom modifications, which require you to deeply understand an architecture of the engine that is way more complicated than what your game requires, and at this point you're thinking "it would actually be easier to do this from scratch" but tough luck you already made your choice or

(b) Give up on the parts of your game idea (which are going to be the parts that make your game unique) and try to squeeze what remains to fit into the engine model. Most people will go with this as it's the easier option of the two, and the consequence is that most games end up being generic crap, despite starting out with unique ideas.

 

[thesheeep]

How technically illiterate has the gaming press become if this is even a question?

Yeah, no shit an expansion is going to use the same engine as the base game

Prey 2017 was built on Cryengine, while its expansion Typhoon Hunter was built on Unreal.

That's a separate game they just wrongfully call an expansion - it's standalone, you don't even need to have the original game installed for it to run. But for odd business reasons cannot purchase it on its own.

I mean, I guess they could theoretically make a "standalone extension" for CP2077 that uses a different engine, but that would be beyond absurd.

If an extension happens within the same game - which can be taken for granted for CP2077 given its structure - the question of engine doesn't make a lick of sense.

 

[whydoibother]

DLCs for CP2077 are out of the window i guess? I don't believe they are actually cooking something

CDPR has stated in multiple investor meetings that they have multiple teams each working on a "AAA project". They are developing the Witcher game in parallel with the Cyberpunk expansions.
You can do weasel lawyer speak to investors, but you can't outright lie, that's criminal. So I do believe it.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

Cool. Let's hope for less clunky combat and inventories not filled to the brim with useless crap this time around.

Also, people are really into Ciri being the next protagonist for some reason. I couldn't care less about her so idk what's up with that.

Because the "mainstream" western gaming industry is big on unattractive female protagonists

 

[Kev Inkline]

Announced to the sound of crickets... Cyberpunk really fucked any and all goodwill these dumbfucks had with a lot of their fans.

don't forget they also angered one of their biggest and loudest fanbois - russians.

Well, Russian sales numbers will remain exactly the same as before.

 

[Kev Inkline]

CD PROJEKT RED also provided confirmation that REDengine, the technology which powers Cyberpunk 2077, is still being used for the development of the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion.

How technically illiterate has the gaming press become if this is even a question?

Yeah, no shit an expansion is going to use the same engine as the base game

Imagine if the engine is so bad it's easier to do the expansion in an incompatible one

 

[Bad Sector]

They never had their own engine, they just modded Bioware's.

Only TW1 was based on Aurora. TW2 and later is on REDengine which was written from scratch. The two engines are very different down to the their core.

 

[Roguey]

Maybe I still have PTSD from 2010 when everything looked like it was smeared with oil because of UE, but I feel that UE is the worst engine.

Things like lighting and art direction are up to the developers (though it's true many are lazy and just use the default settings). Mirror's Edge from 2008 looks great. Dishonored looked fine. The Styx games look fine. Dragon Quest XI certainly doesn't have the "Unreal" look, nor does Final Fantasy 7 Remake or Tales of Arise or pretty much any game from a Japanese developer.

 

[Joggerino]

 

[Reinhardt]

Announced to the sound of crickets... Cyberpunk really fucked any and all goodwill these dumbfucks had with a lot of their fans.

don't forget they also angered one of their biggest and loudest fanbois - russians.

Well, Russian sales numbers will remain exactly the same as before.

It's actually very popular in Russia and books too. And russian witcher fanboys are probably even more dumb and annoying than potato branch.

 

[Drowed]

That doesn't appear to be true. In the Codexian Top 101 RPG poll, the first game using an 'engine' is Pathfinder: Kingmaker as #14. The next one is Shadowrun: Dragonfall as position #28.

Nah, the first is Morrowind, number 10 (Gamebryo engine), but you can claim that it is an in-house engine, even though it was created and has been used for many other games. Then Age of Decadence and Torque, number 11. But the thing is that most of the earlier games that don't use engines are games from the paleozoic era - back then engines were not a thing like today, so you obviously won't find them on that position on the list.

 

[Rincewind]

I disagree. The problem I have with these "modern" engines is that they are not just graphics/rendering engines, they are game engines, in the sense that they already present you the model on which you are supposed to implement game logic. The model is meant to make it easy to implement basic game types engine designers have in mind (e.g. a "first person shooter" template, an <insert popular genre> template etc).

Indeed, all these games look samey-samey to me:

Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun
Inside
Tyranny
Disco Elysium
Praey for the Gods
Black Book
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
Valheim
Desperados III
Wasteland 3
Atom RPG
Kentucky Route Zero
Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded
King's Bounty: Legions
etc.

If only the devs came up with their own buggy in-house engine...

You vastly underestimate the effort that must go into a stable *cross-platform* engine that mostly Just Works (tm).

 

[Rincewind]

If anything, access to 'engines' and asset pipelines put too much pressure on game developers who know how to do their job, to be replaced with zoomer shit-for-brains using 'middleware' and designing levels by using somebody else's tools.

You forgot to mention that real men mine their own silicon. Clearly that and writing your own device drivers in assembly is essential to making good games.

 

[Twiglard]

That doesn't appear to be true. In the Codexian Top 101 RPG poll, the first game using an 'engine' is Pathfinder: Kingmaker as #14. The next one is Shadowrun: Dragonfall as position #28.

Nah, the first is Morrowind, number 10 (Gamebryo engine), but you can claim that it is an in-house engine, even though it was created and has been used for many other games. Then Age of Decadence and Torque, number 11. But the thing is that most of the earlier games that don't use engines are games from the paleozoic era - back then engines were not a thing like today, so you obviously won't find them on that position on the list.

Gamebryo was made by Bethpizda devs to fullfill their needs, with no real separation of concerns between the general 'engine' team and the game itself. It grew as they needed more features for their specific task of releasing Morrowind.

Torque is a high-level graphics and scene graph framework. Not an 'engine', and not a full set of tools for authoring game content.

Unity uses the .NET object model. You have to layout your code and types of assets a certain way to use it. Want a programming analogy? Since we're talking about Unity and .NET already -- consider using Windows Forms data bindings or XAML to do what you want. You're going to spend hours finding the contrived way to bind a list to a combobox to a property editor. Even though the task itself is dead simple. But that analogy breaks down in that you do actually need a GUI framework no matter how simple the resulting user interface.

If anything, access to 'engines' and asset pipelines put too much pressure on game developers who know how to do their job, to be replaced with zoomer shit-for-brains using 'middleware' and designing levels by using somebody else's tools.

You forgot to mention that real men mine their own silicon. Clearly that and writing your own device drivers in assembly is essential to making good games.

That's a very inappropriate analogy as RPG Renaissance games simply draw pre-rotated pre-baked sprites at designated locations. Calculate the offsets and voila.

I think you can even find my image and animation decoder for Arcanum graphics somewhere on the Terra-Arcanum forums. This stuff really isn't hard. Fallout assets are even better-documented. Sit down one morning and draw your own full static 2.5D map by the time midnight comes. With SFML or XNA it's trivial to make the very initial prototype. Engines bring nothing to the table.

 

[El Pollo Diablo]

Indeed, all these games look samey-samey to me:

My point isn't that this games are going to look the same (in fact making games *look* different is one thing engines do relatively well). My point is that anything sufficiently deviating from the norm will sooner or later hit some arbitrary engine limitation that will require either an engine modification (good luck if you're using an engine that isn't open-source like Unity) or a compromise in terms of which features you want to have. I think you're underestimating the number of limitations these engines have once you start looking under the hood. Here's a totally random one: a character in Unreal engine needs to have a pill-shaped collision in order to use a built-in navigation system. Or another one: Unreal engine can't import scale animation from 3ds max. And don't make me started on the navigation systems for these engines.

You vastly underestimate the effort that must go into a stable *cross-platform* engine that mostly Just Works (tm).

That depends on the features you want your engine to have and the size of the team. As someone who wrote a basic 3d engine as a hobby project without any prior experience, it is doable. Admittedly it wasn't cross platform and didn't have many of the fancy graphical features of the modern engines but it did "Just Work". Of course it's still easier to use an existing engine, but if you want tech that fits exactly what your game needs, that's the price you pay.

 

[Roguey]

Gamebryo was made by Bethpizda devs to fullfill their needs, with no real separation of concerns between the general 'engine' team and the game itself. It grew as they needed more features for their specific task of releasing Morrowind.

Gamebryo wasn't Bethesda's and it predates Morrowind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebryo

Over the years they did modify it so much to suit their purposes that it became their own engine and they were able to legally brand it as such.