Ex-Rockstar Dev Suggests Studios Were Too Quick To Adopt Unreal Engine 5

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Recommends Sticking To Custom Engines!

Story Highlight
  • Unreal Engine 5 has seen widespread adoption by the industry since its debut a few years ago.
  • Many games using the engine run poorly, and a Rockstar veteran wonders whether the industry made the switch too quickly.
  • He believes teams using custom engines like Rockstar’s RAGE made the right choice.

Unreal Engine 5 has become notorious for its poor performance across a wide range of games, with Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake being the latest example. Interestingly, Epic Games has refused to blame the technology itself, suggesting that developers need to optimize their games further.

Following recent events, a former Rockstar developer has shared his thoughts on the matter. He suggests that the industry may have jumped the gun on adopting Unreal Engine 5.

Why it matters: Unreal Engine 5 has become the most widely used engine in the industry today, with more and more teams leaving behind their proprietary technology to join Epic Games’ ecosystem.

Former GTA Developer on Unreal Engine 5
Former GTA Developer on Unreal Engine 5 | Image via Twitter

Obbe Vermeij is one of the industry’s most experienced developers, boasting experience with games like GTA San Andreas and Vice City.

When asked to share his thoughts on recent grievances with Unreal Engine 5, he noted that it was interesting how quickly teams shifted to Unreal Engine 5. Even teams like CDPR, which had already invested plenty of time and effort into their technology, made the switch, so this observation is quite reasonable.

Obbe Vermeij went on to say that Rockstar made the right choice by continuing to use RAGE for GTA 6, suggesting that he is in favor of custom engines. Perhaps the industry would have avoided so many technical problems had other studios taken a similar route.

I think R* did right by sticking to RAGE.

For context, teams like Konami abandoned the Fox Engine with Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake, and others like Hangar 13 left behind the Fusion Engine when making Mafia: The Old Country.

Many of these teams had already produced technically sound releases on other technologies, so various developers have found the sudden interest in Unreal Engine 5 a bit jarring.

Unreal Engine 5 Games on Xbox
UE5 Is Powering Some of The Biggest Games This Generation

On the other hand, certain teams like id Software seem to be moving forward with new iterations of in-house technology like id Tech. According to Obbe Vermeij, this seems like the smarter of the two choices.

What do you make of the developer’s opinion? Let’s discuss in the comments and on the Tech4Gamers Forums.

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