EA is making Unreal Engine their new Game Development Standard

"LeGardePourpre;c-18096868" wrote:
I still doubt about The Sims and Unreal Engine. It reminds me when players said The Sims will be better with Frostbite Engine.

It's mainly good news for Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises, BioWare suffered the most.

Frostbite might've actually been fine for a Sims game itself, but the corresponding modding community would've suffered greatly. I know a lot of people didn't like the use of that engine for Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, but I happened to enjoy both games quite a lot. However, modding was a nightmare for both of those. Frostbite is notoriously difficult to work with in that way.

But you do make a good point. Having a great new engine is no guarantee in and of itself that it'll work well with a particular game. That depends on what the developer wants to do with it, but if they feel Unreal will help them achieve their vision for the next Sims game, we'll just have to hope they'll make the right choice to achieve it. With an engine as flexible as Unreal, they just might do something awesome. Then again, it may not be the kind of awesome that everyone likes. But we could say the same of a proprietary engine, too.

I think it's a good choice especially for studios like BioWare because EA have had trouble with the Frostbite engine which BioWare tried to make their games with. When it comes to Maxis I don't think they have had any trouble with their engine as far as I know, apart from it being originally supposed to support online play.

Apart from that, the sims4 engine have worked pretty well and from what I understand it was based on Unreal? They did their prototyping with it, which hopefully means that Maxis will not have anything against making The Sims 5 in Unreal Engine.

The thing that I am worried about is mod support, but from what I understand The Sims4 uses a python client which is why it's so mod friendly, and I guess The Sims5 will probably also use a python client but be connected to the Unreal Engine? So hopefully that means that The Sims5 will also be mod friendly?

Other than that I am happy with EA moving on to Unreal Engine 5 because it seems that there are a lot of people that are good at working with it, it also seems to be very flexible and powerful so Maxis will be able to make a game that will allow us to create the worlds we want and the sims we want, and in an art style which people will like.

"LeGardePourpre;c-18096895" wrote:
It's not a matter of "good" or "bad" engine, it's more about the amount of efforts in order to do something which doesn't exist (5, 10 or 15 years of development).

For example the packs could be longer to develop with UE. In particular Maxis have no experience with it, it's a start from scratch.

I do think using Unreal Engine will improve efficiency, especially with asset creation and animations.

"simmerorigin;c-18097367" wrote:

"LeGardePourpre;c-18096895" wrote:
It's not a matter of "good" or "bad" engine, it's more about the amount of efforts in order to do something which doesn't exist (5, 10 or 15 years of development).

For example the packs could be longer to develop with UE. In particular Maxis have no experience with it, it's a start from scratch.

I do think using Unreal Engine will improve efficiency, especially with asset creation and animations.

If it means we don't get a laggy mess a la TS3, and a game with more depth than TS4, I'm game with literally any engine.

"Tasaar;c-18097989" wrote:

"simmerorigin;c-18097367" wrote:



I do think using Unreal Engine will improve efficiency, especially with asset creation and animations.

If it means we don't get a laggy mess a la TS3, and a game with more depth than TS4, I'm game with literally any engine.

Yeah, my first thought was Sims 3 as well. Adore this game but building it on an improved Sims 2 engine had to have hurt it, right? I mean I'm a bit of an idiot so I could be completely off base here!

"LeGardePourpre;c-18098001" wrote:

"Tasaar;c-18097989" wrote:
we don't get a laggy mess a la TS3

It will depend on your computer. A cheap laptop with Intel Graphic card isn't recommended.

Unreal Engine 5 Recommended Hardware

• Operating System : Windows 10 64-bit
  
• Processor : Quad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster
  
• Memory : 8 GB RAM
  

Can someone explain how EA is going to reconcile using Unreal Engine 5 with their goal of being cross-platform (including mobile devices)? I can't imagine a real, non-spin off Sims game running on an iPhone. But then again doesn't Fortnite (also uses Unreal) work on an iPhone? Anything on this would be helpful.

@simmerorigin, Unreal Engine 5 supports the two biggest mobile operating systems, iOS and Android, as well as Windows, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X and Nintendo Switch.

"logion;c-18096896" wrote:

The thing that I am worried about is mod support, but from what I understand The Sims4 uses a python client which is why it's so mod friendly, and I guess The Sims5 will probably also use a python client but be connected to the Unreal Engine? So hopefully that means that The Sims5 will also be mod friendly?

Unreal engine 5 can handle mods as far as I know of, ff7 remake has mod support and it was made with UE5. lol
Oh yes! Ark survival evolved is made with Unreal engine 4 and that game has mod support, I have the game and a bunch of mods for it. : D

Unreal engine games have had mod support all the way back to the original Unreal. It's a developer decision at the end of the day, but the engine itself won't get in the way.
The very first mod I ever personally wrote was for Unreal Tournament.

"ClarionOfJoy;c-18098081" wrote:

"Breazona;c-18098050" wrote:

"Tasaar;c-18097989" wrote:

"simmerorigin;c-18097367" wrote:



I do think using Unreal Engine will improve efficiency, especially with asset creation and animations.

If it means we don't get a laggy mess a la TS3, and a game with more depth than TS4, I'm game with literally any engine.

Yeah, my first thought was Sims 3 as well. Adore this game but building it on an improved Sims 2 engine had to have hurt it, right? I mean I'm a bit of an idiot so I could be completely off base here!

The Sims 3 wasn't built off The Sims2 engine. It is it's own engine. It's just that it was too far ahead of its time.

The computers we have now play it just fine:

• lag free and can load all EPs and SPs on SDD
  
• graphics can be set to as high as your hardware will allow (just make sure to get the tool that will update TS3 to accept new graphics cards)
  
• also, when people blame lag on the game itself, it is usually a routing issue which can be fixed
  
• the newer computers also have faster CPUs which actually govern the number of townies and tourists you have going out and about and going to the lots
  

I really should set up a YouTube channel and do videos on how I set up a world, how I play sims and do some tutorials on some things that would be helpful.... ?

Finally, someone else who gets it. I took all the cc junk and redid my game right before Sims3 Supernatural came out because I'm a family player and babies were lines. I'm not rich, but I knew to get a good gaming computer when I bought mine and I bought an Asus. Taking off the cc was a night and day change in my game. Still to this day I can play with the whole store and all games without problems. The low end computers and the cc was the biggest issue with the Sims3. And you are spot on, it was ahead of it's time and all I can think about when playing the Sims 4 is how happy I was playing Sims3. Loading, getting out of CAS, saving are issues I hate about the Sims3 that Sims4 got right and that's why I mostly play Sims4 right now because I want to play instead of waiting to load and also because once in game(Sims3) I never want to quit. I can't count how many times I played morning until late at night all day long. TBH, I don't know if that has happened once in the Sims4.

The images for me that helped at the beginning of this is from OP and Simming girl and were the ones that showed the sim looking people walking around the jungle, or sim looking people walking, and the city picture/view. Wow, is all I can say. I hope sims look that real. We've had cartoons in the Sims3&4 and it's time to take this game to Unreal Engine and take Sims to new places and that means looking good. After seeing what's possible, I'm glad S5 is in production; I just hope they are better at putting out packs. Sims3/ and store had so much, but we get same old stuff in the Sims4 and I'm tired of paying good money for stuff already in game, just changed a little. I've had the whole Sims3 store and all games and all games from the Sims4 except 2 kits that are just clothes and seem to be what we already have just slightly different. I don't need that. I hope in addition to real engine that they concentrate on getting a bunch of content out like they did in the Sims3. No content/news in the Sims4 has seriously killed my interest these last few years.