All the big news from Epic’s State of Unreal presentation rounded up

20.03.2024 - 19:35 / videogameschronicle.com / Battle Royale / Amy Hennig / Tom Ivan / Ios

Epic Games held its annual State of Unreal keynote at GDC on Wednesday.

The presentation, which is viewable in full below, featured a host of announcements, headlined by the reveal of Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra.

In development at Skydance New Media and set for release in 2025, the game is being helmed by Uncharted 1-3 director Amy Hennig.

Skydance’s presentation showcased a number of new features shipping in Unreal Engine 5.4 Preview 1, which is available now.

“An Experimental new Tessellation feature enables fine details such as cracks and bumps to be added at render time,” Epic said. “Moreover, the addition of software variable rate shading (VRS) via Nanite compute materials brings substantial performance gains.

“Animators, get ready—the built-in animation toolset received substantial updates enabling you to quickly and easily rig characters and author animations directly in the engine, without hopping to external applications. Create faster with an Experimental new Modular Control Rig, Automatic Retargeting, reorganized Anim Details, an overhauled Sequencer, and more!

“There are also a number of features moving into Production-Ready, including Motion Matching, an expandable next-gen framework for animation features; and Multi-Process Cook, which reduces the time it takes to get a cooked output.”

Epic also revealed a number of new features for Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), which launched after last year’s State of Unreal keynote.

Creators can now use MetaHuman to create and animate high-fidelity NPCs for their Fortnite islands, as demonstrated in The Talisman demo.

It’s also bringing Rocket Racing, Fall Guys and Lego elements to UEFN. Players can now use new tools and race track templates to build Rocket Racing islands in Fortnite.

Lego assets are now available in Fortnite Creative and UEFN, enabling creators who agree to additional terms and conditions to build their own islands using Lego brand templates, props, consumables, items, and more.

And in May, Fall Guys assets, animations, and beans will enable creators to build their own obstacle courses inside Fortnite.

Since UEFN’s launch last March, Epic said creators have published over 80,000 islands, and it has paid over $320 million to creators in its first year of engagement payouts.

Epic also reiterated plans to bring Epic Games Store to mobile later this year.

“EGS will become the first ever game-focused, multi-platform store, and will work across Android, iOS, PC, and macOS,” it said.

“Mobile developers will benefit from the same fair terms on EGS for PC: 88/12 revenue share and the same programs you can leverage to keep 100% of revenue using your own payments for in-app purchases, Epic First Run, and Now On Epic.”