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- Blackspace Engine features realistic water with foam formation, volumetric fog with fluid simulation, and incredible cloth & hair simulation.
- While Blackspace offers great clouds that form and fade away naturally, they aren’t as realistic and volumetric as Unreal Engine’s.
- Unreal Engine has several performance issues, including stuttering. Blackspace could become the industry standard if it improves in that area.
We live in an era where Unreal Engine is the most widely used engine for AAA games. Not only the released games but also the upcoming games are to be made in Unreal Engine 5, which is the case for Titalfall 3 and the new Batman game.
With every game following the same route, it becomes challenging for games to stand out, as they often appear almost identical. To counter this issue, a new contender has quietly entered the arena, namely the Blackspace Engine.
Blackspace Engine: A New Contender
Developed by Pearl Abyss, the engine will be featured in Crimson Desert, an open-world fantasy RPG game. The game features a 50-80 hour campaign and offers spectacular visuals thanks to its new high-fidelity engine.
Water Foam Effects
The game’s demo reveals the capabilities of this engine in many ways. One of its prominent features is its realistic water effect. While the water effects in Unreal Engine were already realistic, it lacked the foam that Blackspace Engine added.
Here, water waves form the same foam we see in real life as the water crashes against the rocks. In a flowing river body, this foam looks even better as the water appears to be flowing with a heavy stream rather than appearing stagnant.
Cloth & Hair Simulation
This engine also features a highly realistic simulation of cloth and hair. On a windy day, the clothes placed by the local villagers and the surrounding vegetation move along with the wind.
This is very impressive, as we can see them move in a way that doesn’t feel scripted, and their movements appear more natural. At one instance, you can see the trees sway left for a while, become stagnant as the heavy wind comes and goes.
Blackspace Engine uses the GPU to simulate these movements. In Unreal Engine 5, you’re prone to experiencing a lot of stuttering in places where clothes move. Silent Hill Remake is the most common victim of this stuttering problem.
Volumetric Fog With Fluid Simulation
Another notable feature is its volumetric fog with fluid simulation, where you can walk through the fog, and it’ll move accordingly. The fog moves gradually as if you’re walking on a still water surface.
Not to mention, the fog isn’t stationary when we don’t come close to it. If you pay attention, you can see it circling and filling up the entire ground, which appears very interesting, as if you’re seeing clouds forming.
Clouds Aren’t As Good
Speaking of clouds, they add a dramatic beauty to video games, making their role very important. Here, they move and slowly fade away after covering a distance, but they aren’t very volumetric.
Some of them also form from nothing in the middle of the sky, following a trail so it isn’t haphazard. However, the clouds in Unreal Engine are highly realistic, dense, and fill the sky, creating a dramatic beauty that adds to the games.
Ray Tracing Is A Must
The ray tracing in this engine appears decent, although it is not as realistic as in Unreal Engine 5. However, from the before and after, it is evident that ray tracing is something that is not to be missed in this game.
What I mean is that in other engines, ray tracing is an add-on that you enable to enhance the appearance of the environment. However, here it seems necessary, as some places appear out of place compared to the ray-tracing one.
To compare with other engines, I find ray tracing in Unreal Engine to be very common. It feels the same in every game, and it’s becoming boring to see identical ray tracing. I loved the ray tracing in AC: Shadows with their Anvil Engine.
Should Other Engines Replace UE?
See, Unreal Engine has its own place, but it hasn’t been the very best recently. Despite the visual enhancements that Unreal Engine offers, it has numerous performance issues. It is better for games to switch to new engines instead.
This is why I love that Ubisoft skipped Unreal Engine for Assassin’s Creed: Shadow, and it worked in their favor, as the game has one of the best performances despite incorporating ray tracing.
Verdict
The Blackspace Engine looks promising in the demo, and if its performance is better than Unreal Engine 5’s, it could dethrone it. Crimson Desert is scheduled to release later in 2025, which will allow us to test and compare with UE.
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[News Editor]
Obaid is pursuing a Law degree while working as a content writer. He has worked as a gaming writer for over three years because of his passion for the medium and reporting the latest updates in the industry. Having played hundreds of games, Obaid finds himself coming back to Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and Red Dead Redemption 2, with these games being among his favorites. He has also been mentioned on highly regarded websites, such as Wccftech, Metro UK, PS Lifestyle, GamePressure, VGC, and Gamespot.
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