14 DAY TRIAL // Epic Games, the developer of the well-known Gears of War and Unreal Tournament series of video games, is now working on a new version of their Unreal game engine and it seems that one of the main areas of focus will be the creation of more life-like characters and more complex environments, which can then be used to create more complex interactions.
Speaking to Game Informer Tim Sweeney, who is one of the co-founders of Epic and one of the company's point men on technology development, has said, “I’m most excited about the ability for more realistic characters and movie-quality environments to enhance the player’s emotional attachment to the game world.”
To the game developer, early games like Donkey Kong were well balanced because they had the necessary amount of graphics to deliver their fun quotient and that shooters likes Doom were the first to play up emotion in the form of fear.
He talked about Valve as one of the companies that are capable to use graphics well while delivering emotion, saying, “Game developers have much further to go in delivering truly dramatic interpersonal experiences. Alyx in Half-Life 2 offered a glimpse into this possibility; I think increasingly lifelike characters are key to further progress.”
Epic Games has been talking about Unreal Engine 4 in various forms ever since 2005 and there are signs that development on it had been going on for some time before that.
Mark Rein said last year that the company planned to launch the new technology and make it available to other developers in 2012.
They are promising better graphics and more options linked to world building.
The company launched a tech demo for Unreal Engine 4 called The Samaritan, which looked pretty impressive, with Epic Games saying that it might eventually be turned into a full game.