14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Epic Games in charge of the Unreal Engine 4 announces that a roadmap about the future of the technology is at the moment open to the public and that all those who are using it will be able to vote on the features that they are interested in seeing implemented in the short term.
An official announcement on the blog of the company states, “As a disclaimer, anything listed in the current version may not actually make it into the engine as planned today; we may run into complications that push out a feature, or we may have reason to stop working on it altogether. Items in our backlog may never see the light of day either, as they are simply ideas we’ve discussed but haven’t yet figured out if or how they would best fit into the engine.”
Epic Games still believes that most of the elements listed in the roadmap will be included in Unreal Engine 4 at some point around the dates listed in the document, but there are no guarantees in the development process.
The team says that more than 100 improvements have been added in the 4.1 version of the technology, which was delivered just one month after the first version was released to the public.
Unreal Engine 4 is offered under a subscription service, allowing gamers access to the entire tool set for 20 dollars or Euro a month.
Epic Games is also introducing a marketplace for assets and middleware that is designed to make it easier for developers to create their titles fast.
The company also says that most of the features listed in the roadmap beyond the 1-2 month point should be approached cautiously.
Epic Games adds, “The engine is quite large these days which means there’s always a tremendous amount being developed, and it can be challenging to meaningfully communicate that work to a broad audience. Our roadmap serves to share the mid-to-high level development efforts in a way that is easy to digest and provides context, especially for those not directly working on a particular area.”
All members of the Unreal Engine 4 development community are invited to vote and comment on the roadmap, but all decisions are still in the hands on Epic Games.
A wide range of titles that are powered by the new tech and linked to next-gen consoles should start launching in late 2014 and early next year, including Fortnite.