Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the next game from Respawn, the team behind the Titanfall series. The Titanfall games were powered by the Source Engine so a lot of gamers were wondering why Respawn decided to use Epic’s engine for this new Star Wars game. Thankfully, game director Stig Asmussen and Respawn’s CEO Vince Zampella have shed some light and explained why the team decided to use this particular engine.
Stig Asmussen claimed that it wasn’t a matter of choice as when Respawn started building the team for its new project – which at the time was not related to Star Wars – they had to create a game from the ground up and Unreal Engine 4 seemed like the better choice.
“There were a couple of other options out there, and remember we weren’t part of EA at this point so Frostbite wasn’t even an option, so I started taking around with it and was “Wow this is really powerful for what an individual developer can do with it, imagine what a whole team can do with it”. So we just pushed forward with it and we are very happy with the decision.”
Vince Zampella re-confirmed Asmussen’s claims, stating that they were hiring a new team and it was easier to find people that were familiar with Unreal Engine 4 than with other engines like the Source Engine.
“It made sense for the team, you know. So we are hiring up for a new team. It’s easier to find people that have Unreal Engine 4 experience, it was an engine that fit what we were kind of trying to do, instead of trying to adapt the Source Engine over. In evaluating all the engines that were available to us this is the one that the team felt it was the best choice.”
It’s also interesting noting that both Asmussen and Zampella claimed that they were not forced to start using the Frostbite Engine – when Respawn joined Electronic Arts – and even if Frostbite Engine was a choice, the team would still evaluate and decide what engine suited the game it was preparing to create best.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is currently planned for a November 15th release.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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it looks off
not going to concern myself with it until release
Unreal Engine 4 must make truck loads of money for Epic since they get a 5% royalty from every game using it.
Not every game. Only after a certain amount. I believe I read that it was $100,000, but I may have the number wrong.
Unreal 4 is vastly underused this gen compared to Unreal 3 last gen.
I doubt they make that much money this time around.
No wonder since UE 3 is superior engine to work in and also in results.
I doubt it’s superior. It’s just less capable and thus less complex.
It isn’t less capable, but if you can”t use UE4 without creating blurry mess (I have yet to see UE4 in action being sharp on the scale of 3), then it’s not a viable engine to develop in. If we were starting a new AA(A) game development, I’d pick massively expanded 3 over 4 as well.
“I have yet to see UE4 in action being sharp on the scale of 3”
Gears of War 4?
GOW was the better game using it, but that was directly overseen by Epic and is still crashing for many on the PC at least.
AFAIK, Epic had nothing to do with it. It was strictly the Gear devs from Microsoft for Gears 4. As for the crashing, that’s a driver issue for Nvidia.
The franchise was sold to MS with a condition that Epic will help with the engine when needed.
Finished amid evil, i had constant freezes and stuttering due to unreal engine 4 having a bug on amd fx cpus and realtek audio cards.
Cant wait to NOT play this game. Epic games fixed the issue on fortnite but not on any other games so FU epic games.
Amid Evil may not be using the newest version of the engine. The fix is in engine so Its likely only present in games depending on the UE4 version.
“and even if Frostbite Engine was a choice, the team would still evaluate and decide what engine suited the game it was preparing to create best.”
I wonder if every current studio under EA said the same thing at one point or another.
Good luck to Respawn. With them being owned by Electronic ‘accept it or don’t buy the game’ Arts and working on Disney’s Soy Wars IP they’re going to need it!
“they had to create a game from the ground up”
Yet, regardless of the PR spin, significant elements of the game’s video trailer very much appeared to resemble a reskin of Titanfall 2 assets and wall-running gameplay.
Also, lol at the usual Epic shills blitzing this comments section! ?
Yeah, like none of this is news. We all knew that unreal engine is the best of the best, well its the oldest engine out there. But what we’ve come to hate is Epic Games and everything it stands for. Therefor i now cannot stand anything that says UNREAL. Such a great engine from a scumbag company.
So yes all this shilling is quite UNnecessary, we all know what unreal is capable of for Christ sakes. What can i say, shills gonna shill bro.
You forget to take your meds again kimmy?
Frostbite is the better looking engine, Unreal produces crappy results even if it’s easier for developers to work with.
Gameplay demo showed a title with a certain low-res-ness to it, not a nextgen looking game at all
Unreal Engine 4 is the best.