Today Epic Games released to huge bits of news for game developers, and hopefully for gamers everywhere to get a little excited about.
Starting with Epic Online Services, it was announced today that it's live now for developers across almost all platforms (yes, Linux too). It supports Unity, Godot Engine, Unreal Engine, various stores like Steam and consoles. Giving developers a cross-platform service to hook into for matchmaking, lobbies, achievements, stats and a lot more.
The other massive bit of news is Unreal Engine 5, which was also announced today in a blog post giving a preview into its capabilities as a game engine. You can see their demonstration video below highlighting some of the features - they say it's all real-time too:
Direct Link
Epic said Unreal Engine 5 will get a full release in late 2021 with a preview early next year. They've also now waived any royalties when making games with Unreal Engine on the first $1 million in gross revenue.
Curiously, the announcements for both Epic Online Services and Unreal Engine 5 don't mention Linux support. Stadia support also wasn't mentioned. EOS clearly does support Linux though, it just wasn't mentioned in the post. Hopefully it's the same for UE5 especially since UE4 does build for Linux. We've reached out to Epic Games press to confirm, will update if they reply.
Update: An Epic Games staff member said very clearly "linux isnt going anywhere" in reply to questions about Linux support for Unreal Engine 5 in the 'Unreal Slackers' Discord that I've seen today. So we can expect Linux support to continue.
The same developer later mentioned "and the context for that comment is specific to Linux support is staying in the engine and still being worked on". Just so it's real clear.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Power-Metal-Games May 16, 2020
Quoting: ShmerlThat's good to know, Liam! If you have access to their Discord, can you please ask if they already implemented this item in UE5:
What do you want to ask? Vulkan in UE4 is already there. For UE5 they wouldn't start using OpenGL.
Quoting: Power-Metal-GamesQuoting: ShmerlThat's good to know, Liam! If you have access to their Discord, can you please ask if they already implemented this item in UE5:
What do you want to ask? Vulkan in UE4 is already there. For UE5 they wouldn't start using OpenGL.
He's referring to the multithreaded rendering. Vulkan (and DX12) may be supported, but they don't actually improve performance.
Quoting: Power-Metal-GamesQuoting: ShmerlThat's good to know, Liam! If you have access to their Discord, can you please ask if they already implemented this item in UE5:
What do you want to ask? Vulkan in UE4 is already there. For UE5 they wouldn't start using OpenGL.
Yes, I want to ask about parallelization work they were planning and full support of high end features in the Vulkan renderer.
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: StraToNUhm... Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in French, saying that "something isn't going anywhere" means it's a lost cause. This didn't sound good to me at all when I first read it. Can you please confirm?In English, it means it's quite literally not going anywhere. As in, Linux support is staying.
Quoting: ModofokusNo need, I've seen it personally, otherwise I wouldn't have added it to the article. I think after running this for almost 11 years now that people would trust my word :). Screenshots can just be easily faked anyway. If you're that bothered, I gave the name of the Discord to join and see.Quoting: AchetaWe got a confirmation on Discord from Epic employee after asking about UE5 and Linux support:
Quotelinux isnt going anywhere
So good news:).
Do you have a screenshot that confirms it?
Hey, just asked for confirmation, not for annoy anyone. Sorry if I offended you.
No need to be flexing the 11 years tho ;)
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