When we started researching engines, Unreal ultimately was the best fit for the content we wanted to make. Jason: Unity is a great engine, as is Unreal. Not exactly the fault of Unity, but as you can see, it's easier for our team to create content in Unreal. That was another reason for the switch, content took too long to get into unity. Oh, another thing worth mentioning is that the UE4 video represents 1.5 months of direct content creation, whereas the unity demo had about 6 months. More elaborate and iconic art is coming, but remember, for this early stage of v slice, it's about establishing a solid foundation to build upon. For now, we chose to bring art in we could finish quickly so we can get the other departments (like design) testing their stuff in engine.

This is a big game, so we're trying to tackle these components in order, starting with a solid tech foundation and an effective the process for getting art into the game. The next steps are getting interesting creature and environment behaviors, while also iterating on the hacking puzzles, cyberspace, weapons, and items. We're only 20% through our vertical slice, and there's still a lot to do. Gameplay wasn't a priority for assessing the engine since, again, everything we've researched indicates Unreal can offer the same (if not better) foundation for the gameplay systems. The other thing I heard was people were worried that the gameplay was becoming stripped down due to the simple combat shown in the video. Now that we have the pipelines set for getting art into the engine, we'll be iterating on the style and mood.

Art direction was a lower priority for the engine change since we wanted to be sure the technology could do what we needed first. What you see in the video is a rough style we are experimenting with to push crisper visuals. The visuals are still a work in progress and know that I'm listening. Things would pretty much look the same in either engine, but the big difference is performance. So, the engine change and visual change are unrelated. In case you missed it, here’s what I wrote:

Last week, after seeing a lot of feedback regarding the video, I took to Discord and quickly wrote up a response to concerns I was seeing, and thanks to some loyal fans, it was reposted in various places.

Will system shock reboot return?