Epic Games presented an even more enhanced and updated Unreal Engine 5 at the Game Developers Conference yesterday. At their showcase of State of Unreal, they demoed Unreal Engine 5.2 which includes some incredible hyper-realistic facial motion capture, a more unified asset marketplace, procedural generation for designers, and of course what’s next for Fortnite. 

There were numerous tech demos shown that highlighted yet again the true next-gen power of Unreal Engine 5. Epic Games has boasted its power ever since UE5 reveal in May 2020, just how stunning games using the tech will be. There was a demo from Hellbalde II using what Epic calls Metahuman, it captures facial animation in precise detail into a digital human version all in realtime. Another game from Infinitesimals highlighted the detailed rendering for large open-world games, as well for game designers quick changes they can make using Epic’s assets. 

The showstopper of the event really came from a video that included a Rivian driving through a densely packed jungle. The video touted UE5 photorealistic lighting and foliage, the Rivian car driving over dirt and rocks, as well through a puddle of water and how everything reacted to one another in real time at such minute detail. Epic also featured a new material called Substrate, a system of shading that reacts to lighting and other complex details. In this, they presented the Rivian in an opal reflective material with dirt finely overlayed to the texture. Within the Rivian jungle demo was a demo of the procedural generation tool for designers that changed the detailed landscape without any delay. It will help developers creating large open worlds through detailed handcrafted environments. 

Finally the event didn’t shy away from Epic’s massively popular Fortnite. Epic has announced Unreal Editor For Fortnite or UEFN, which will give creators the reigns to create near stunning AAA-like Fortnite content. They presented the video as an enhancement for changing the landscape and assets to Fortnite’s iconic island but furthered it all into a video that resembled what could be a FromSoftware game. There were custom content assets created outside of Fortnite, with real-time lumen lighting on every texture and exquisite modification of materials shown in the demo. Even better, it’s all available today.