One of the first confirmations
After Epic unveiled Unreal Engine 5 last week, we were given vague assurances that developers for both PS5 and Xbox Series X would have access to this new engine (and a console war argument was inadvertently sparked in the process). However, we haven’t really heard of any games that would use Unreal Engine 5, possibly because it’s still more than a year away and not a lot of next-gen games have been revealed yet.
That’s why it might not be super remarkable but it is noteworthy that inXile has confirmed its next game after Wasteland 3 will be built on Unreal Engine 5. Studio founder Brian Fargo confirmed as much a few hours ago while replying to a fan.
We’ve had quite a few questions about our next gen RPG and can confirm it will use Unreal Engine 5. https://t.co/65jq0ckz5f
— Brian Fargo (@BrianFargo) May 19, 2020
In recent years, inXile has primarily switched back and forth between Unreal Engine 4 and Unity. The Wasteland games and Torment: Tides of Numenera, for instance, run on Unity. The Bard’s Tale IV, however, is Unreal Engine. There’s probably no hint as to inXile’s next game based on which engine the developer chooses.
Although, there may be an indication as to the time table we’re working with. Unreal Engine 5 will go into preview in early 2021 before a full launch in late 2021. That probably means it’ll be in the hands of big-name developers first before it’s available to everyone. Maybe the takeaway isn’t so much “inXile’s next triple-A RPG will be built in UE5” so much as it’s “A lot of next-gen games will make use of UE5 but they’ll take upward of two more years to get here.”
