Since Epic and Crytek levelled the game engine playing field at GDC – each announcing subscription services to match that of cheeky young thing Unity – they’re now back to the usual business of shoulder-barging each other with new features.
For Epic, that apparently means making Gabe Newell as happy as possible. The Unreal Engine’s 4.1 update introduces official support for both SteamOS and Linux.
Elsewhere, there are new game templates both for C++ programmers and designers using the Blueprint visual scripting system – the same system that Epic say will allow non-programmers to create “whole games” by themselves.
What’s more, the Unreal Elemental demo that so wowed us some 685 days ago is now available for subscribers to download for free from the engine’s marketplace. That way, they may learn from its gloopy lava and tattered banners – perhaps filling their own games with gloopy banners.
Beyond the headline changes, Epic have implemented more than 100 improvements based on community feedback.
“Unreal Engine 4 is evolving at an incredibly rapid pace,” say the developers. “Its first month has seen a number of code plugins released, and thousands of development forks created on GitHub to improve and extend the engine in an open, collaborative manner.”
Hmm! The Unreal engine helped define the last generation of vidyagames, there’s no doubt about that. Would you like to see it at the centre of the next?