STALKER 2 made me look back and realize that letting Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5 become the industry standard for the next decade might have been a mistake.
Of course, GSC Game World's big comeback FPS/survival game is the “worst case scenario” for UE5 powered games to be ruined at launch, but I've played a fair amount of UE5 games four years into this generation, and maybe Epic's powerful engine isn't for everyone, as early demos and the aftermath of The Matrix: Awakening made it seem.
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Some background before I rant: I don't know much about the ins and outs of game engines, programming, 3D modeling, or anything else. I did dabble in Bethesda's Creation Engine at the time, but that was about it. I've never shown much interest in software and professional tools beyond the “power user” level. However, I'm (for obvious reasons) very curious about all of these processes and the work that goes into making various video games and interactive experiences.
Of course, I'm also a guy who plays a lot more games than he should in a year, and this is a good way to start understanding things, both good and bad. Combine that with self-taught knowledge of hardware and operating system tinkering, and as a consumer you start to understand performance issues rather than just saying “that's like a wet ass” and asking for a refund (which I encourage everyone to do more often ).
Anyway, do you remember when the big Fortnite update in late 2022 ported the entire thing to UE5.1 to take advantage of Nanite, Lumen, and all that stuff? After several years of hyping its new engine and trying to get developers beyond the limitations of the PS4 and Xbox One, this feels a bit like Epic's big win moment with new technology. Let everyone and their own mother experience it free All the shiny, stunning new visuals UE5 brings are implemented in a fully-featured AAA online game.
As expected, things didn't quite go as planned. The average Fortnite pro has been using the lowest possible settings to maximize their K/D ratio for years, while those of us with sufficiently powerful hardware are finding more stutter when jumping than in higher versions of UE4, and overall The performance hit is not worth the trouble. Two years on, not much has changed. Jumping into a Fortnite match right after updating the drivers or the game itself means you won't do as well as the shaders will be completely reloaded again and all the heavy lifting is done on the go. Not ideal.
For those who don't know: the whole deal with shaders is that each hardware configuration must (or should) prepare them for fast loading Front This is why consoles don't suffer from these issues, and why modern games on PC can be a bit rough lately, at least until your PC gets “acquainted” with the latest AA/AAA beasts. Different engines (and developers) handle this problem in different ways. “Stuttering struggles” are a very real thing when it comes to UE5, especially when traversing huge levels/worlds, and the lack of good, correct shader compilation at launch in some games only makes things worse Worse.
Even though UE5 has been used quite well (see Remnant 2), Lumen and Nanite have added lighting and a level of grain detail to scenes that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago, but with that comes a performance hit even though The same is true on expensive PC hardware. Not worth it for the average gamer who is just looking for a smooth, pain-free experience, especially when playing particularly stressful and demanding games.
A solution to capture the industry faster than UE5? Aggressive AI-driven upscaling and frame generation. Both AMD and Nvidia are working on this, with the latter locking in (admittedly more powerful than its competitors) technology behind the 40-series and above. Since developers can now conjure frames out of thin air, it feels like graphics fidelity is evolving faster than the actual hardware used to run all that jazz, with ray tracing leading the way. The end result? Most big studios were trying to be Crytek in 2007, pushing incredible visual quality that could only be achieved by current hardware at high frame rates, thanks to crutches like DLSS, FSR, and the like.
Did you know? I think technology is working very well and is showing more promise year by year. I love how my 4070Ti can bring the frame to life. But even if you get all these sweet boosts… some games are still a choppy, jagged mess, and I'm unhappy to say that UE5 is still the worst. A good recent example is 2023's ill-fated Immortals of Aveum, a game that, even after several patches, still has major problems on a technical level. Although it enjoys FSR3 and DLSS 3 support, it's a mess and prone to crashes. This also applies to several other 2023 games, such as the surprising Lords of the Fallen reboot, which gained quite a cult following but suddenly had a second freeze no matter what your settings were. And it's still pretty rough on console.
These are just some examples, but you can see the pattern here. If you don't believe me, let the good folks at Digital Foundry convince you with more data and in-depth research than I can provide. Also, if you're an avid gamer, check out this list of games you've played recently and those you've complained about performance issues. The biggest exception, at least in my experience, seems to be Hellblade 2 (which isn't surprising considering how much time Ninja Theory invested in the audio-visual presentation compared to everything else), aside from PC issues Rare crashes aside, it's very smooth and stutter-free and I was miserable when it launched. But Hellblade 2 also happens to be a very linear game, so you can take whatever you want.
As we look toward the future, with the next UE5-powered behemoths like The Witcher, Mass Effect, and Star Wars Jedi looming ever closer, I can’t help but worry about all the major studios that have given up on what their own technology relies on Epic Games' engine, so far, feels pretty underwhelming in real-world use outside of crazy tech demos and projects where a lot of time and resources have been allocated to fixing its kinks.
STALKER 2 was probably the straw that broke the camel's back, and while we can put most of the blame on GSC Game World for not spending more time developing it, I can't help but think about how smooth Dragon Age was: Veilguard works on a variety of hardware, while running on an engine (Frostbite) that not long ago was considered unsuitable for applications other than FPS. Have we been tricked by Tim Sweeney again? Uh-oh…
