Unveiled during GDC 2024, version 5.4 of the Unreal Engine, Epic Games' iconic engine, is now available to developers. This new iteration enriches and improves the already impressive features of Unreal Engine 5, which appeared in early access in May 2021 before becoming stable in April 2022. Unreal Engine 5.4 thus marks an important step in the evolution of this video game creation engine.
Focus on animation and advanced features
Unreal Engine 5.4 stands out in particular for its particular emphasis on animation. The character animation tools have been reworked to provide developers with greater ease and speed in creating animations directly within the engine. Features such as Modular Control Rig allow you to create animation skeletons from simple modules, thus simplifying the creation process. In addition, improvements have been made to the deformation graph and the Sequencer, the non-linear animation editor, providing better ergonomics and greater readability.
Rendering engine and AI improvements
In the area of rendering, Unreal Engine 5.4 benefits from several significant improvements. Optimizations have been made to hardware ray tracing management and shader compilation, with the aim of reducing stuttering effects. Additionally, Nanite includes experimental tessellation functionality, while Variable Rate Shading (VRS) promises to deliver significant performance gains. On the AI side, the Neural Network Engine (NNE) is moving from experimental to beta status, allowing developers to load and run pre-trained neural network models.
Use in games and future prospects
Epic Games points out that many of the Unreal Engine 5.4 tools have been used internally for games such as Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and LEGO Fortnite. As for third-party games, the only confirmed title running this version is Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, scheduled for 2025. These announcements hint at a promising future for Unreal Engine 5.4, both from the game creators' point of view than players.