CCP Games Developing Highly Anticipated New Games Exclusively with Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4

[Raevenlord]

CCP games, the company behind the deep and uniquely player-driven spaceship MMO game EVE Online, has confirmed that Unreal Engine 4 is the exclusive development tool for all of CCP Games' currently unannounced projects. CCP's commitment to Unreal stems from the engine's stability, quick prototyping and the solid cross-platform support for both established and new hardware.

CCP's development teams globally are taking advantage of the powerful and easy-to-use functionality of UE4, from fluid integration of third-party systems with plug-ins and modules to improved networking and cross-platform support. CCP's game developers have jumped on board the exclusive use of UE4, specifically its Unreal Editor that leads the way in terms of lighting and rendering solutions, world composition, landscape sculpting and Blueprint prototyping.





"Although CCP Games has used versions of Unreal Engine for more than 10 years on various projects, Unreal Engine 4.20 has massive improvements," said Bing Xi, Development Director at CCP Shanghai. "UE4's latest enhancements, like the new ProxyLOD mesh reduction tool and the new Niagara VFX editor are among the many features that make game development a more efficient process."

Using Unreal Engine 4 in the development of all their upcoming new games allows CCP's studios to plan for the future by cultivating a shared in-house knowledge of the engine. When coupled with the engine's ability to ease the transition of games to different platforms, UE4 enables CCP to stay platform-relevant earlier and for longer.

"Working with Epic Games using their engine source code, which is open to all Unreal developers, is great for both AAA and indie studios alike, thanks to the huge amount of support options available," said James Dobrowski, Executive Producer on the unannounced action-MMO being created at CCP London. "UE4's Blueprints system allows us to prototype and iterate quickly, and its world-class AAA pipelines allow us to focus on crafting great gameplay and stunningly beautiful worlds."

CCP Games is one of many major players in the industry whose development teams trust Epic Games' UE4, from traditional gaming companies including Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, to newer technology and experience makers, such as Magic Leap and Oculus.

"Considering that Epic uses its own engine to develop games like Fortnite is a great example of the trust they have in their own product," said Snorri Árnason, Project Nova's Game Director at CCP Reykjavik. "The product's push for cinematic rendering quality is something that we will aim to implement into our future projects."

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[RejZoR]

Remember that time when nearly all games were made either with idTech (especially Q3A engine) or Unreal Engine? How many games even are made with Unreal today? Mostly indie games and Epic's own games. And that's about it. All the larger studios make their own engines and while that gives games different feel, it's crap from compatibility and performance standpoint.

 

[londiste]

Studios tend to have specific needs for their games from the engines, so rolling their own is not a bad idea if they are capable of doing so.

More engines is good, not a bad thing. Virtual duopoly of idTech and Epic was not that good.
Today we have Unity and CryEngine providing some good competition to Unreal

Unreal is far from dead, even more so in AAA scene:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Remember that time when nearly all games were made either with idTech (especially Q3A engine) or Unreal Engine? How many games even are made with Unreal today? Mostly indie games and Epic's own games. And that's about it. All the larger studios make their own engines and while that gives games different feel, it's crap from compatibility and performance standpoint.

I think its come to a point where maybe Epic were being too restrictive or were demanding too much money for the use of their IP and it would be cheaper for them to just build their own because If it turns out to be great then theres also a good chance that they could make more money on it if they license it out to other developers if they so wished.

 

[RejZoR]

But no one licensed own engines to others and they were often clumsy to work with because they were designed to be comfy to those devs only. Unreal is made with 3rd party devs in mind basically since version 2.

 

[Readlight]

Unity advantage is it sounds better than others. dx12 uses too much ram, looks good and is fast.

 

[StrayKAT]

Studios tend to have specific needs for their games from the engines, so rolling their own is not a bad idea if they are capable of doing so.

More engines is good, not a bad thing. Virtual duopoly of idTech and Epic was not that good.
Today we have Unity and CryEngine providing some good competition to Unreal

Unreal is far from dead, even more so in AAA scene:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unreal_Engine_games

Some don't even use engines that suit a game's needs. Case in point: EA forcing Frostbite everywhere.. like RPGs. Basic Bioware RPG mechanics still had to be implemented from the ground up (things like inventories and such)... on top of that, they made their newest RPGs into open worlds.. that seemingly don't have proper navigating for the NPCs (it's why you'll see the squad members running around and turning about in odd ways).

 

[londiste]

Unity advantage is it sounds better than others. dx12 uses too much ram, looks good and is fast.

Unity's advantage is that is is cheap. Or has been. Most engines have had their terms changed in last few years

Some don't even use engines that suit a game's needs. Case in point: EA forcing Frostbite everywhere.. like RPGs. Basic Bioware RPG mechanics still had to be implemented from the ground up (things like inventories and such)... on top of that, they made their newest RPGs into open worlds.. that seemingly don't have proper navigating for the NPCs (it's why you'll see the squad members running around and turning about in odd ways).

EA has resources to make that work. Newest iterations of the engine in things like NFS or FIFA are really OK. They probably decided it is more efficient to have their own engine across a bunch of studios. Just look at the list of games they've done on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_(game_engine)

 

[Vayra86]

Unity's advantage is that is is cheap. Or has been. Most engines have had their terms changed in last few years

EA has resources to make that work. Newest iterations of the engine in things like NFS or FIFA are really OK. They probably decided it is more efficient to have their own engine across a bunch of studios. Just look at the list of games they've done on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_(game_engine)

And then there is Ubisoft with Anvil that has done this for years already. Its not a new thing at all

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnvilNext

 

[StrayKAT]

Unity's advantage is that is is cheap. Or has been. Most engines have had their terms changed in last few years

EA has resources to make that work. Newest iterations of the engine in things like NFS or FIFA are really OK. They probably decided it is more efficient to have their own engine across a bunch of studios. Just look at the list of games they've done on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_(game_engine)

Unfortunately, the damage is done on Dragon Age. The inventory is so shoddy that you can't even mod a basic new weapon into the game. All items in RPGs have ID numbers, but in DAI, it's a finite amount of numbers limited to only what you see in the game. lol. So this means that you mod something in, you have to take something in the vanilla game out.. and replace your mod with the vanilla ID number.

And then there is Ubisoft with Anvil that has done this for years already. Its not a new thing at all

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AnvilNext

Yeah, but their games are practically identical. Which is why I got so bored of them. It's a wonder that I even like FarCry 5 at all -- but I got it for free, thankfully. But if you've played one FarCry or AC, you've basically played them all.

 

[Assimilator]

Remember that time when nearly all games were made either with idTech (especially Q3A engine) or Unreal Engine? How many games even are made with Unreal today? Mostly indie games and Epic's own games. And that's about it. All the larger studios make their own engines and while that gives games different feel, it's crap from compatibility and performance standpoint.

Yeah, look at the insignificant number of games flagged as "TBA" or 2018 and future years! I guess big-name studios like Square Enix, Facepunch, Lionhead, NCSOFT, YS, Bandai Namco, Nordic Games, Double Fine and now CCP don't count for anything. Epic must surely be shaking in their boots made of money from Fortnite and Unreal engine licensing.

 

[StrayKAT]

Yeah, look at the insignificant number of games flagged as "TBA" or 2018 and future years! I guess big-name studios like Square Enix, Facepunch, Lionhead, NCSOFT, YS, Bandai Namco, Nordic Games, Double Fine and now CCP don't count for anything. Epic must surely be shaking in their boots made of money from Fortnite and Unreal engine licensing.

You had me until you mentioned DoubleFine

What the hell are they are making with Unreal? And will it actually release? edit: Ah Psychonauts 2. Interesting..

 

[RejZoR]

3/4 of those you listed are just riding on their history and haven't really made anything worth mentioning. Also, DoubleFine?

 

[Vayra86]

3/4 of those you listed are just riding on their history and haven't really made anything worth mentioning. Also, DoubleFine?

3/4 of those studios?! Perhaps they're not making your favorite games but they've been around quite some time...

Regardless, look at the list he linked. Its almost longer than what's on the list for UE3, and UE4 is only around for a couple years.

UE4 has a significant market share.

 

[Totally]

Some don't even use engines that suit a game's needs. Case in point: EA forcing Frostbite everywhere.. like RPGs. Basic Bioware RPG mechanics still had to be implemented from the ground up (things like inventories and such)... on top of that, they made their newest RPGs into open worlds.. that seemingly don't have proper navigating for the NPCs (it's why you'll see the squad members running around and turning about in odd ways).

Oh no no no, don't try to place the blame of Andromeda cock-up on the engine, that is squarely on the Devs and EA. You're also pulling things out of context, I read that piece in normal development things like that would be non-issue, but EA decided to switch everything mid-development iirc the article mentioned this was about 6 months before their deadline.

 

[StrayKAT]

Oh no no no, don't try to place the blame of Andromeda cock-up on the engine, that is squarely on the Devs and EA. You're also pulling things out of context, I read that piece in normal development things like that would be non-issue, but EA decided to switch everything mid-development iirc the article mentioned this was about 6 months before their deadline.

Not talking about the animations.. but something more fundamental in the engine with npc pathing... because the issue existed in DAI too. And apparently never fixed.

But yeah, the cutscene animations and stuff were screwed up because they switched from 3DStudio to Maya midway through (that and seemingly hired an unqualified person as an animation team lead).

 

[Prima.Vera]

Unreal engine doesn't have a very good facial rendering sytem (read: VERY POOR), and also it has a very cartoonish looking final image that all the engine itterations had.
I think the best game so far to use the engine was Hellblade, but that's because of the very high quality custom facial animation the developer put into it.