Are they still making Orion on Unreal Engine

[Ivan]

Cuz I vastly prefer this engine. Whatever the case I hope we get the ability to play as a full organic in the next game cuz it would be awesome AF in addition to making the game much harder. Also invulnerable to quick hacks and stuff but it would probably be a pain for them to make changes to parts of the story where you need to use that neural link cord with stuff thats important to the story.

[Amanoob105]

From what I understand they're making it in UE because this engine proved a giant pain in the backside to work with.

[★REM★]

if it's in the cyberpunk universe don't expect to be able to play as full organic, some cyberware will be there. But for sure, you can opt to not install additional one

[Proxy]

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

From what I understand they're making it in UE because this engine proved a giant pain in the backside to work with.

I haven't seen a UE5 game yet that looks as good or plays as nicely as this one though. I understand the desire to maximize productivity so an easier engine is a great thing for a studio, but I'm quite concerned about the quality of the end result. I'm sure they've considered all of this but the whole state of the AAA gaming industry these days does not fill me with confidence.

[Millimidget]

They're making it in UE5 because it's cheaper and easier to find and replace devs for a widely known third-party engine than to train them on RED Engine.

And if 2.0 is any indication, don't expect any love for niche challenge runs; 2.0 took a big step backward in supporting those builds, and it's pretty clear the devs want you to smash face til it's dead.

[Amanoob105]

Originally posted by Proxy:

I haven't seen a UE5 game yet that looks as good or plays as nicely as this one though. I understand the desire to maximize productivity so an easier engine is a great thing for a studio, but I'm quite concerned about the quality of the end result. I'm sure they've considered all of this but the whole state of the AAA gaming industry these days does not fill me with confidence.

So basically? Just don't by it at release, I'm not sure why that isn't considered common sense by this point.

Wait for it to release.
Wait for the (customer) reviews to come in.
Wait for all the bug fixes and patches.
Wait to see how the (customer) reviews look after that.
All of that taking about 6 months or a year (Cyberpunk taking almost 5 years is a bit of an outlier in that regard ).
Then think about buying it.

I've dodged some real bullets over the last 15/20 years using that method.

[Proxy]

Originally posted by Amanoob105:

So basically? Just don't by it at release, I'm not sure why that isn't considered common sense by this point.

Wait for it to release.
Wait for the (customer) reviews to come in.
Wait for all the bug fixes and patches.
Wait to see how the (customer) reviews look after that.
All of that taking about 6 months or a year (Cyberpunk taking almost 5 years is a bit of an outlier in that regard ).
Then think about buying it.

I've dodged some real bullets over the last 15/20 years using that method.

Its not about bugs, its about the engine itself. I just don't like the way it runs and I don't think it looks as good. UE5 is a jack of all trades but it generally looks worse than UE4 games.

[valium]

Remnant 2, Black Myth Wukong, Manor Lords, MechWarrior 5, Silent Hill 2 remake, STALKER 2 (baller game, but points off for stability). Some of the best games made in the last 2 years are made in Unreal 5, and it will get better over time as improvements start rolling in.

[catch22atplay]

There are issues with both engines. I prefer red engine as well. But mainly because i don't want all my games looking and feeling the same. That's the major detractor of UE5 for me. Engine itself is ok.

[Duilf]

This game might look nice, but seriously people think about it. Someone doesn't ditch their own tool, and rent someone else's instead simply for the lol of it.

Something is wrong beneath the surface here. It is actually highly suspicious that so much changed between 1.6.3, and 2.0.... or rather that they needed a 2.0 at all. To name a few level scaled enemies (like in Witcher 2/3 I might add) were introduced, they abandoned the armored clothing angle instead giving most armor to cyberware, speaking of they massively overhauled cyberware, and they overhauled guns changing how they worked including removing elements (while some guns still have elemental effects this is not the same). Basically the whole game other then the narrative was turned on its head. With that amount of changes it becomes safe to say the underlying code was a mess, and they had to make some to all of those changes in order to add in more content. Which also explains why we only got 1 massive dlc. Technically we also got a few larger updates which added items, but that is much easier to code in.

Oops seems I am still half asleep, but apparently the message was clear.

[wombat93]

Originally posted by Duilf:

This game might look nice, but seriously people think about it. someone doesn't ditch their own tool, and rent one else's instead simply for the lol of it.

This. A dev studio that has their own proprietary engine doesn't have to pay out to use someone else's engine. There's also in house familiarity. Think of Bethesda clinging to their ancient Creation Engine.

Everything I've heard since Cyberpunk 2077's disaster release made it seem like work with REDengine was complete hell for the game. REDengine has been their workhorse since Witcher 2.

The experience and disaster was so bad that heads rolled at the company. They also had up to the game's release a godly reputation for RPG makers. Really, I still remember how people were blowing CDPR so hard up to release.

That stellar reputation was literally destroyed the same day the game released. So when CDPR said they were switching to UE5, it didn't surprise me after the experience they had with Cyberpunk 2077.

[Millimidget]

Originally posted by Duilf:

To name a few level scaled enemies (like in Witcher 2/3 I might add) were introduced, they abandoned the armored clothing angle instead giving most armor to cyberware, speaking of they massively overhauled cyberware, and they overhauled guns changing how they worked including removing elements (while some guns still have elemental effects this is not the same).

That was all window dressing to facilitate the 2.0 marketing campaign and its claim that the game had been saved. None of those changes were made due to engine constraints.

I mentioned the challenge of having to train devs in RED Engine versus the appeal of finding devs already familiar with UE5. That's the motivating factor, because it means cheaper labor costs.

Another factor may be CPU/GPU manufacturer partnerships. There's rumors that Nvidia, which greatly assisted CDPR in implementing ray tracing, pushed for the 2020 release to facilitate GPU sales, prices for which were skyrocketing at the time. By switching to UE5, dealing with these partnerships is now a problem for Unreal rather than for CDPR or other devs licensing out UE5.

Originally posted by wombat93:

Everything I've heard since Cyberpunk 2077's disaster release made it seem like work with REDengine was complete hell for the game.

It feels like RED Engine became a convenient scapegoat for the release state.

[Silverbane7]

Part of it is multiplayer.
Part of it is new talent only knows how to use unreal.

When the game first dropped, we know they planned at least two expansions.
Then, that got shelved and we were told 1 expansion, but multiplayer would be added.
Then, multiplayer was going to be it's own, separate game like with GTA.

The Devs left by then could not spanner multiplayer into the engine. Not for co-op, not for multiples online.
And investors and shareholders want multiplayer as much as players often do.
But for entirely different reasons.

Going forward, cdpr said ALL their games will have *some* multiplayer components and compatibility. Be it co-op or group based or large scale.
But they also don't want to chase the multiplayer only pony as that won't make as much as going after both multi and single player.
After 1.0 and the craptastic but beautiful start of the game, Devs started to move up, more on or move out.
And as usual, the first ones to go are often the ones that know the code/engine best.

You can see it with the Sims 3 and 4.
First couple of expansions, the game runs okay. but soon enough, they were telling simmers not to install *all* the packs.
Code rot sets in because the newer folks don't know what the earlier folks knew about the engine, and spaghetti starts to unravel.

Now, it's not as bad with REDEnigine thankfully.
But the issue is, every new hire to a game company these days was just trained on unreal or unity.
No C+ or older stuff. No problem solving via creative use of limitations or squeezing the most out of the systems.
Games are so big these days because they CAN be.
And no one really wants to spend months teaching new hires to use their own engines.
You get no work done, nor work out of them. Deadline's don't get filled. And profits won't get made.

[Amanoob105]

Originally posted by Proxy:

Its not about bugs, its about the engine itself. I just don't like the way it runs and I don't think it looks as good. UE5 is a jack of all trades but it generally looks worse than UE4 games.

I agree it isn't all about bugs, I never said it was. This is why I also listed patches and reviews which what you mention here would generally come more under the heading of.

[SarmatII]

UE games end up looking & feeling similar to play, on top of its atrocious optimisation issues (what optimisations? it runs like a turd) its not good that the gaming industry devolves into one sub-standard "standard" engine.

[Titan Awaken]

Part of the reason for this game’s massively botched launch was because of REDengine (and the fact that they were developing the game for 9 platforms simultaneously).

CDPR were upgrading REDengine while also developing the game which, to put it frankly, is like laying down new train tracks while driving the train. In short, a recipe for disaster.

Though I have no concrete evidence to back this up, I could conjecture that part of the reason they switched to Unreal 5 was because they learned from this game’s troubled launch and wanted to avoid engine shenanigans in order to focus fully and solely on game development (as opposed to game development PLUS engine development).