this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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It does make them feel homogenous, with similar strengths and limitations both visually and mechanically, though.
I mean I guess if everyone was using the default settings and buying assets off the unreal store you might get that, but the engine doesn't come with graphics. You can make whatever you want in it. You could make a ps1 era looking game. You could make something like windwaker. You could make a 2d game. It's just a set of tools.
Don't get me wrong, the engine does have strengths and weaknesses, and lends itself better to certain things. That makes games of a certain type gravitate towards it.
You can do plenty of lower end stuff and have it feel somewhat distinct, but it takes a lot more to use UE in a 3D game and not make it super obvious it's unreal. People are responding unfavorably to it being on unreal for a reason. It's not imagination. It has a lot of flaws that limit games using it unless they take extraordinary measures to overcome them.
The end result is people tired of unreal because the games all fall short in the same ways, because the engine pushes devs into it.
Is it taking extraordinary measures, or is it more leaning into the hyper realism look because that's what people expect when they hear UE5? Not a rhetorical question, I just would assume the latter.
The extraordinary measures to not feel like another generic UE game involve replacing core components not designed to be replaced.
The reason people don't want to see UE just be "the engine" for every big budget game is because you get way more variety when big companies make their own from the ground up to meet their own needs. A game like Elden Ring feels different because they have different design principles, sure, but it also feels different because they built their own engine from the ground up that fits its gameplay. It would be a worse game in UE. The things it abstracts away sound great, but it means everyone does the same things the same way.
People react negatively to it because it's really easy to tell.
I definitely agree about going back to more bespoke engines.
It's also the camera and lighting. Someone remanded MW2 in Unreal Engine and while it looked better it somehow had a Fortnite feel to it.