How Eternal Strands Is Bending Unreal Engine 5 to its Will First

A new Unreal Engine 5.4 comparison video was shared online today, highlighting the differences in reflections quality over the previous version of the engine.

Epic Games has released Unreal Engine 5.4 along with a video highlighting its improvements. Epic has been working on the Unreal Engine for a long time and as the developer has grown, so has the ambition of its engine. Unreal Engine 5 was released in 2022, and this iteration of the engine focuses on streamlining real-time 3D animation even further and allowing more complex work on geometry to be done.

Unreal Engine 5 is increasingly the go-to option for current-gen development, and now, the latest version of Epic’s software is here. We got a taste of Unreal Engine 5.4 during last month’s State of Unreal GDC 2024 showcase, but now the software is in developers’ hands.

Even in its early alpha state, my extensive hands-on time with Eternal Strands gave me a lot to be excited about. Whether it’s the Monster Hunter-esque boss fights against giant creatures, the interesting and flexible physics-manipulating magical powers, or the obvious dedication to telling a wholesome story filled with lovable characters, this upcoming indie repeatedly surprised me by being very different from its action-adventure peers. By combining a hodgepodge of some of my favorite elements from different genres into one action-packed package, developer Yellow Brick Games hopes to pull off something wholly unique with its inaugural title. After numerous hours climbing atop fiery dragons and freezing pesky knights in a block of ice, I think Eternal Strands stands a good chance of delivering something really special, and I’ll definitely be keeping a close eye on it.

Next up in our IGN First coverage of Eternal Strands, we're diving into the unique and colorful art in the land of the Enclave. We sat down with art director Sebastien Primeau and lead character artist Stephanie Chafe to ask them all about it.

While you’re exploring the land of the Enclave and taking on gargantuan bosses in Eternal Strands, you’ll unlock more and more magical abilities to help you on your journey. But unlike many games where magic might let you toss a fireball or Force push an enemy off a cliff, Eternal Strands has a unique approach to the nine physics-altering abilities it puts in your toolbelt, all of which allow for an impressive level of freedom. Continuing our month-long exclusive coverage of the upcoming action-adventure game from a new team comprised of ex-BioWare and Ubisoft developers, today we’ll be taking a look at a few abilities at the heart of this battle-heavy odyssey and how they can be combined in surprising and creative ways.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is not getting a proper remake anytime soon, leaving it to fans of the long-running series to reimagine locations from the iconic game using modern technology.

Continuing our ongoing coverage of Yellow Brick Games’ debut action game, Eternal Strands, we sat down with some of the indie studios’ leadership team to discuss the origins of their scrappy studio, and learn more about the indie world they’re using their AAA backgrounds to create. First, we chatted with CEO Thomas Giroux and COO Jeff Skalski about the studio's origins, then we spoke to Chief Creative Officer Mike Laidlaw and Lead Writer Kate MacMullin about their journey to the indie scene, and the characters and story in Eternal Strands.

ProbablyMonsters, an independent game company founded in 2016 by former Bungie president and CEO Harold Ryan, has created a new team to develop a competitive multiplayer game in Unreal Engine 5. Led by former Bungie leader Chris Opdah, who has more than 20 years of experience as a game developer working on franchises like Halo and Destiny, Hidden Grove is the new team within ProbablyMonsters working on this multiplayer project.

At GDC 2024, Canadian developer Piranha Games showcased new info and footage of MechWarrior 5: Clans, a standalone game and the first in a very long time to be narrative-focused in this franchise. As suggested by the game's title, this will be a Clan Invasion story (the first since 1995's MechWarrior 2), diving into the period that changed the politics of the Inner Sphere for good. According to the developers, this will be an ideal entry point for series newcomers, too.

In Eternal Strands, a major part of your adventure will be doing battle with the nine massive bosses that wander freely throughout parts of the world. In my time exploring the magical land of The Enclave, I encountered a handful of these formidable monstrosities, which ranged from a robotic bipedal summoner who used his magical staff to cover the world in fire to a flying dragon who persistently hunted me from the skies above. Continuing our month-long coverage of Eternal Strands as part of IGN First, today we’ll be taking a look at one such oversized baddie: The Ark of the Forge, a hammer-wielding automaton with deep love of smelting puny Weavers into piles of ash.

This console generation has been pretty short of “next-gen moments” — those dazzling, techy epiphanies when you see a game do things that were inconceivable on earlier hardware. You can make a case for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart’s lightning-fast loading or Starfield’s potato physics, but there have been relatively few instances where you can watch the future arrive in real time.