Gunfire Games’ Darksiders 3 released roughly one year ago and after supporting it with DLC, it seems the developer is moving on to bigger things. On its official website, the developer hiring for a combat designer to create combat that’s worthy of a “top of class AAA game”. Whether this is for Darksiders 4 or a completely new game is unknown.

What we do know is that the game will be developed on Unreal Engine 4. Though this is the same engine that Darksiders 3 uses, it wouldn’t be too odd to see Gunfire Games sticking with it out of familiarity (as seen with its Souls-like shooter Remnant: From the Ashes). Other requirements for the position include working with design leadership to “design, implement and polish compelling combat experiences”.

One must also be capable of creating combat that’s “compelling and balance” along with iterating and polishing the same. Given how important the combat sounds to the game’s vision, it could be a while before we see or hear anything concrete about it. If Darksiders 4 or even Remnant: From the Ashes 2 is in development, it’ll be interesting to see if it arrives for current-gen consoles or directly on next-gen.

In the meantime, Airship Syndicate’s Darksiders Genesis is out this week for PC and Google Stadia. Unlike its brethren, it’s an isometric hack and slash action title that place before the first game.

Ray-Tracing to Revamp Old Games

Ray-tracing may be all well and good for making games like Battlefield 5 look a little less boring. But its best application thus far is in revamping old games like Quake 2. Path tracing has been utilized to make the classic FPS look almost new. Quake 2 RTX also has over 3,000 Q2XP mod-pack textures, adds global illumination, real-time reflections, dynamic lighting and so on. However, the potential for ray-tracing to update games for a new generation (at least those with RTX cards) is immense.

The uncanny valley, for the unfamiliar, is that weird feeling you get when you look at something that almost looks like a person, but it isn’t quite right and inspires repulsion as a result. You may have felt it looking at screenshots of Detroit: Become Human. While with current hardware, it’s nearly impossible to cross that gap while maintaining a playable state, Epic Games CTO believes that we will soon be able to overcome this limitation.

Speaking with Gamesbeat, Kim Libreri discussed the hurdles that come with the uncanny valley in a rather frank manner, saying that while current GPUs within systems just can’t do everything to the right level, next generation will have no problems. “It’s going to end up being not about your technical expertise to make these things,” he said. “That technique will become ubiquitous over time. It’s got to be about telling an awesome story where people will want to watch that face get involved and do interesting things.”

The subject came about due to a question regarding the impressive Siren demo that Epic shared with attendants of the Game Developers Conference 2018. The new Siren technology that is now shipping with Unreal Engine 4.20 includes new skin shaders and facial animation techniques to bring up the quality of models in games using Unreal Engine. The new update to the Unreal Engine also means great things for weaker hardware such as Nintendo Switch.

Just 10 days ago, we learned about a fan named Qimsar who released a beta version of Konami’s P.T. demo remade in Unreal Engine 4 for the PC. Unfortunately, Konami has recently shut down the remake because of legal reasons, naturally.

Though Qimsar wonders why other P.T. remakes haven’t been removed along with his, there is some good news. On GameJolt, he revealed that on speaking to a Konami representative that, “He told me that my remake was popular (which from the way he spoke, it sounded like it was very popular) around the office and that because of my remake, Konami had a strong resurgence of a desire to make legitimate games again (as opposed to Pachinko machines, mobile games, sports games, which, I guess they’re all ‘legitimate games’ but you get what I’m saying.”

To that effect, not only will he receive some merchandise to show Konami’s appreciation, but also an internship with the publisher. “It hasn’t been made super official or anything, but a freakin’ internship for me with Konami in which I would do stuff with Konami US, EU, and Japan. Internships tend to turn into jobs fairly often and for a 17-year old who isn’t even a senior in high school just yet, to get this for the very first game project that he’s ever worked on with 6 hours of prior UE4 experience (and a fair amount of Unity experience (35 hours give or take but that’s irrelevant), that’s pretty good.”

While it is a shame that Qimsar’s hard work can’t be shared with everyone else, the fact that it’s attracted Konami’s attention enough to offer an internship is certainly a positive. Even if it doesn’t turn into a full-time job, it’s something that Qimsar can add to his resume for work down the line.

P.T., for those out of the loop, was a playable demo for Silent Hills, a reboot of the horror franchise that was meant to be directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro. Following Konami’s falling out with Kojima, the project was shelved and P.T. was removed from the PlayStation Store permanently.

Epic Games is currently rolling in the dough as far as income from Fortnite goes. Fortnite is currently the most popular game in the world, and certainly one of the most lucrative, bringing in a few hundred million dollars monthly. Apparently, that’s so much money that Epic has decided to share the wealth with their partners a little.

Epic has today announced that they will be reducing their share for any sales made for assets, libraries, and codes on the Unreal Engine Marketplace. Assets and libraries sold on the Unreal Marketplace are usually pre-made code sold to game developers using Unreal, who may be unable to design their own assets or libraries to their liking. Epic has so far charged the standard 30% store holder’s cut on everything sold on their store- but from now on, they will be charging only 12%, with creators getting 88% (or seven-eighths) of the total revenue they get from their sale. In what has to be the most remarkable and incredible part of this entire announcement, they have also confirmed that they will be putting this in effect immediately and retroactively- so it retroactively applies to all sales on the Unreal Marketplace, and Epic will be backpaying creators four years worth of money.

The long term effect of this is, for a lot of creators, Unreal just became far more attractive than Unity, since they get more of a cut- which, in turn, means a lot of game developers may be more attracted to Unreal over Unity, since they will find more code on the Unreal Marketplace for much cheaper prices. This would mean Unreal Engine 4 gets even more proliferated than it already is.

It’s a hell of a play. I’m sure Epic thanks their decision to make Fortnite Battle Royale to this day- none of this would be possible without the money it is bringing in.

Dragon Quest 11 was the first game announced for the Nintendo Switch—in fact, it was announced back when the Switch was still known as the NX. But then the game launched last year in Japan, on 3DS and PS4, but no Switch version in sight. Many then assumed that the Switch version was probably being held back for the localization, and that it would launch simulataneously worldwide. That’s what made the most sense, right?

But then the localization was announced, and while it was coming to PC and PS4, the Switch version was, again, missing, and all Square had to say about it was that it would be coming “later”. Just what was going on with the Switch version?

As it turns out, while the Switch version of the game is still in active development, it ran into some issues due to Square Enix first using an outdated build of Unreal Engine 4 (which the game was built on) at first.

“It’s true that the Nintendo Switch version is under development at this moment in time,” Producer Hokuto Okamoto told GameSpot at PAX. “Specifically with regards to the development, this game was developed on the Unreal Engine, but the version for Unreal Engine needs to be updated, I suppose, in order to support Switch. In that sense, the development is still expected to take a very long time. It’s still a long ways out.”

Okamoto also admitted that Square had in fact considered the possibility of waiting on the Switch version before releasing the localization—but then realized that the Switch version was potentially so far out, it would be an unreasonable wait for everyone involved.

“Of course, we did consider releasing the PlayStation 4 and Switch version around the same time if that was even a possibility, but right now the outlook for the Switch version is still unclear at this moment in time,” Okamoto said. “The Japan team, they wanted to release Dragon Quest XI and bring it overseas as soon as possible for our fans overseas, which is why they proceeded with the PlayStation 4 [and] Steam version[s] this time.”

So that’s that—the Switch version, while still in the works, is far enough away from release that Square Enix has decided to just go ahead and launch the PS4 and PC versions of the game for now anyway. I’d recommend getting one of those—the game looks like it will be too great to miss.

Epic Games announced recently that they would be closing down Paragon, their MOBA/hero shooter hybrid that launched a few years ago, and failed to make much of a mark on the market. They also announced that they would be handling the closure gracefully, refunding all players as well.

But there’s more- with them no longer having any plans for Paragon, Epic Games have decided to release $12 million worth of game assets from the title for absolutely free, for use in Unreal Engine 4. Which basically means, if you are using Unreal Engine 4, you can sue those Paragon assets in your own game for absolutely free, no strings attached. That’s… a great move, and should prompt more aspiring developers to look into Unreal Engine 4. It’s also a great use of the assets for the title, which would otherwise go to waste.

Paragon was available on PS4 and PC; with Epic now custodians of Fortnite, currently the world’s biggest game (and available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC), this is a move they can afford to make- and I am glad they have chosen to do so.

Epic Games releases $12 million worth of Paragon assets for free –
https://t.co/kCXloctBJT #UE4 pic.twitter.com/K5paDNv41S

— Unreal Engine (@UnrealEngine) March 19, 2018

Kingdom Hearts 3 is due to launch on the Xbox One and PS4 next year, and it looks like it may be leveraging some locations not just from Disney, but from Pixar, too. According to new screens that were allegedly leaked for the game (via ResetEra), it seems like one of the worlds in the new game will be based on Monsters Inc.

You can check out the screenshots for yourself below. I think they look legitimate enough- but given that the game is being developed in an engine as widely available and used as Unreal 4, spoofing them would be sadly all too possible.

Nonetheless, if they are real, then they open up a world of possibilities- are Pixar movies fair game? Can we expect Toy Story? Up? Wall-E? I really hope that Disney is willing to let Square play around with their expanded properties, too. Kingdom Hearts 3 launches next year on PS4 and Xbox One.

The developers of such beloved arcade style experiences like Nex Machina and Super Stardust HD, Housemarque have announced that they’ve licensed the popular Unreal Engine 4 to power their next game, which we can expect to be shown soon.

While historically, Housemarque would work with their own in house engine, they first tested Unreal Engine 4 with their last title, Matterfall. The popular game development suite has been behind many high profile titles of the generation, helping developers bring games like Tekken 7, Rime, Gears of War 4 and the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Remake to life. Many developers choose to work with Unreal Engine 4 because of its robust tools and flexibility, which Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen states in a press release as central to their decision.

“We have made the decision to use Unreal Engine 4 exclusively going forwards. Unreal 4 enables fast prototyping, contains modern pipelines and editors for artists and designers and provides really valuable documentation and support forums. Plus, it’s still very customizable so we can still use our award-winning rendering and visual effects tech with the engine. We’ve got some exciting stuff in the works!,” Kuittinen stated.

Housemarque recently announced that they would be moving away from the arcade genre after their latest title, Matterfall failed to meet expectations, and the developer will explore new genres such as multiplayer experiences with robust communities. There were no details given on this upcoming project.

Unreal Engine 4 now supports every major platform on the market- update 4.17 has gone ahead and added support for Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox One X. This is preliminary ‘initial support’, meaning full support for the console is probably a few months down the line- similar to how support for the Nintendo Switch was rolled out over a few months.

This is good news for smaller developers, since it ensures that they can now target Microsoft’s higher end console, assuming they are developing on Unreal Engine 4. Unreal Engine 4 has not yet managed to catch on with smaller developers to the same extent that Unity has – though a lot of smaller titles and indie developers use it now – but for those that do, and that number hopefully only goes up over time, this is great news regardless.

The Xbox One X will launch on November 7; dozens of games have been confirmed to be supporting the Xbox One X via enhancements already, a number that only promises to grow.