Unreal Engine Has Always Had Problems
Unreal Engine has never been a perfect engine for video games; in fact, there have always been problems. Back in the days of Unreal Engine 3, every game that relied on it had the look of a UE3 game, and UE3 had a very ‘video game-y’ almost cartoon look to it, which wasn’t always a good fit. Unreal Engine 4 suffered from this problem, too, generally eschewing true photorealism for a look that was always best suited to games like, well, Fortnite. Unreal Engine 4 also had serious problems with stuttering. Across games and platforms, it’s pretty common to experience routine stutters with Unreal Engine 4 games. Unreal Engine 5 doesn’t feel or look like a cartoon, offering up true photorealism, but it’s entirely possible there are performance problems with it that happen across games, especially considering how much of a graphical upgrade Unreal Engine 5 is over Unreal Engine 4 in terms of graphical fidelity. Historically, Unreal Engine hasn’t had great 2D support, especially when compared to an engine like Unity, and Unreal is constantly being updated, which is good in a sense, but can make development a hassle. Plus, Unreal, again lags behind when it comes to supporting mobile over an engine like Unity, too. These areas may not impact everyone, and they aren’t all the issues with unreal, but they go to show that there are issues with unreal that have been around for a long time.
Performance Won’t Be Great With Unreal Engine 5
Historically, Unreal Engine hasn’t really powered the best-looking games, outside of a few exceptions. However, the trade off has generally been strong with Unreal Engine working on lots of different hardware and remains able to perform well. Unreal Engine 5 is changing this paradigm. Unreal Engine is pushing hard into photorealism, equipping creators with the tools to be able to create games that look better than ever before. That’s really cool, too, especially when it comes to Unreal Engine 5 tech like Nanite. However, there are also going to be consequences. Unreal Engine 5 games, for example, that are trying to push the graphics envelope are not going to run at 60FPS on console, by and large, which will come as a disappointment to those who have gotten used to 60FPS options on next-gen. And on PC, Unreal Engine 5 games will likely have hefty graphic requirements, especially if you want to play on higher settings or at higher framerates. Naturally, this will be a concern for PC gamers in the same sense it will be a concern for console gamers stuck at 30FPS. In time, sure, PC hardware can outstrip the requirements of Unreal Engine 5, but that’s not much of a solution for right now, and for many, that kind of performance may exist outside of their budget, which won’t help them either.
Mod Support Is Dicey With Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine does have mod support, so it’s not like you can’t mod Unreal Engine games. However, it’s less of a feature and less of a primary concern for Unreal Engine games than it is for, say, a Bethesda game built to be moddable and totally disassemblable by players. As we move into what’s looking like a generation of games dominated, once again, by a few engines outside of the proprietary engines of the huge AAA developers, it’s definitely a concern if games aren’t built with mods in mind, especially as consoles slowly inch closer to being actually moddable.
