A number of weeks ago, Wired released images from an exclusive look at the new Unreal Engine 4 running in real time.  We only had some impressive looking stills at the time, but yesterday the entire trailer was made available to the public.

Unreal Engine trailers, however, have always been hard to pick through for me, and I think it's because they're always presented so cinematically.  Though I'm told it's in real time, my mind is so used to seeing gameplay in a much more, well, gamey fashion that I think the impression is dulled a little when swinging camera shots start coming into the picture.

It also might be my lack of a technical mind for such things. A graphical engineer may stand in awe at lava flowing properly in real time while there are 20 other effects -effects he knows the technical name of- all going off as well. As for me...I simply stare at it with a slight pique of confusion and utter the world "pretty" between sips of coffee, ensuring that I'm taking in more caffeine than understanding.

I almost wish some of these tech demo's would feature actual gameplay...even if it is completely made up for the sake of the moment. While that burning Knight may have been impressive, how does he look fighting enemies in that environment? How do those burning embers react to enemies being slammed against the wall by his giant hammer? And though I certainly don't mean to lessen the validity of what we're seeing; to the lay-gamer the method of delivery might be a little too high-brow to truly make as much of an effect as it should.

That's my opinion anyway.  What do you think?

 

And here is a companion walkthrough video which explains a lot of what we're seeing. (Thanks to Will Dearborn for the heads-up)

Comments

  • Avatar
    Will Dearborn
    12 years, 5 months ago

    I think that this demo is definitely aimed more for developers than consumers, compared to last year's Samaritan demo, which was more like, "here's what you can expect gamers".

    I think you should post this companion video they released: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOvfn1p92_8 I thought it was far more interesting.

  • Avatar
    lostking
    12 years, 5 months ago

    all this looks like to me is riding on the coat tails of diablo 3, i doubt its coincidence, but hey, it looks nice and unreal is usually the engine that first hits new consoles.

  • Avatar
    Meltdown
    12 years, 5 months ago

    I agree with your wish of tech demos to show gameplay, even if it is faux-gameplay.
    When you go and look at Square's newest tech demo here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVX0OUO9ptU ... I had the same kind of feeling. I can tell that's it's impressive and that there are a lot of details present, but the average person might not be that impressed because it's presentation is not dissimilar from Squeenix cutscenes (FFXIII in particular which I judged this tech demo against for a jump in quality).

  • Avatar
    Soha
    12 years, 5 months ago

    I appreciate the companion walkthrough posted to show how the environment reacts to several changes. I think that's really what catches my eye more during gameplay that essentially trumps pretty flowing lava. Two very interesting clips!

  • Avatar
    Bob Webb
    12 years, 5 months ago

    I have the biggest fucking tech boner right now. I've used some of the earlier Unreal engines and can recognize all of the changes they've made. I cannot express the amount of enthusiasm and excitement I have for the next generation of games. Maybe I'll nerd out during a CTT, go into details and bore the fuck out of everyone.

  • Avatar
    robotmolester
    12 years, 5 months ago

    comming from someone who knows verry little about making games, the first demo video looks really "meh"

  • Avatar
    Muddy_Donuts
    12 years, 5 months ago

    So many Particools.

  • Avatar
    TheOttomatic91
    12 years, 5 months ago

    I have to agree with that gameplay would be a far better showing of the new Unreal Engine but hey I'm just glad there will actually be a new engine.

  • Avatar
    lemith
    12 years, 5 months ago

    The second video gives me a much better idea of what the engine is capable of.

  • Avatar
    GreenFishie
    12 years, 5 months ago

    wait, so this is the stuff they can produce during gameplay? or merely cutscenes? this looks really cool either way 0w0

  • Avatar
    Yodaral
    12 years, 5 months ago

    Looking good, so many lighting effects to make every room look unique. Hopefully it will allow smaller dev teams to create extremely realistic looking environments without putting forth a ridiculous amount of time and effort. I've gotten used to seeing so many games using Unreal tech as their game's engine, from AAA to dinky indie titles. I'm just hoping that Unreal Engine 4 will be as hardware friendly as its predecessor has been, with respect to modern day machines and the hardware to be released in the near future.