Introduction
Unreal Engine 5 was released in early access earlier this year, giving developers a first look at the next generation of Epic’s ubiquitous game engine. As an avid gamer and game developer enthusiast, I was eager to get my hands on Unreal Engine 5 and see how it performs. In this article, I’ll provide my impressions and an early review of Unreal Engine 5 based on using the early access build and testing some of the key new features.
Key New Features
Unreal Engine 5 comes packed with several groundbreaking new features and tools that aim to streamline game development and empower developers to create next-gen experiences. Here are some of the most noteworthy new capabilities:
Lumen
Lumen is a fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to changes in lighting and geometry. This enables developers to create believable scenes where indirect lighting adapts on the fly at runtime. In my tests, Lumen worked seamlessly and added a new level of realism to test scenes as lighting shifted.
Nanite
Nanite allows developers to import film-quality source art assets and geomtery to use directly in-engine. It virtually eliminates polygon budgets and culls unseen geometry automatically to optimize performance. Nanite gave a huge leap in visual quality in test scenes while maintaining high framerates.
World Partition
World Partition enables developers to stream massive worlds without any loading screens. Epic demonstrated transitions from detailed interior spaces to massive landscapes with no perceivable loading. This has the potential to revolutionize open world games.
MetaSounds
The new MetaSounds system procedurally generates soundscapes in real-time based on the environment. In my tests, MetaSounds added believable ambient sound to test scenes that adapted to different camera perspectives seamlessly.
Ease of Use
Overall, I found Unreal Engine 5 easy to use even in the early access version. The UI and workflows build nicely on Unreal Engine 4, so existing UE4 users should feel right at home. Key actions like compiling, packaging, and deploying projects worked smoothly. I was able to get test scenes up and running quickly. The documentation is already quite extensive and I was able to find answers to questions easily.
Performance
Unreal Engine 5 delivers a big leap in graphical quality and capability while still achieving excellent performance in my tests. Nanite and Lumen worked flawlessly even in complex scenes with highly detailed assets and geometry. Framerates remained consistently high at 1440p resolution on a RTX 3080 GPU and Ryzen 7 5800X CPU. Epic appears to have optimized UE5 effectively to take full advantage of modern hardware.
Early Verdict
While still in early access, Unreal Engine 5 already feels remarkably polished and delivers next-gen visuals and performance. Key features like Lumen, Nanite, and World Partition appear to work as advertised and should empower developers to create experiences not possible in UE4. I’m excited by the potential of Unreal Engine 5 and look forward to seeing the first games leverage these capabilities. For developers, UE5 looks to make building high-end games more accessible than ever. Overall, my early impressions of Unreal Engine 5 are overwhelmingly positive.
