Using Unreal Engine at Sumo India
Unreal Engine has been a pioneer and one of the most preferable game engine development tools for game developers to create top-notch AAA games. It was developed by Epic Games around 25 years ago and since then there have been several iterations and updates. Just recently Epic has come up with its new version – Unreal Engine 5.
Epic Games released its demo running on PlayStation 5 a year ago and it created a lot of buzz and gamers were awestruck after seeing it. Currently, the Demo reel stands at 16M views and needless to say, must have really helped Sony and Microsoft sell their latest new-gen consoles – PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
The Engine started as an editor that would enable Epic developers to build 3D games. Eventually, they built the rest of the engine around the editor so that artists and designers could easily use the tools to make incredible, alive 3D game worlds. The tool was able to do this with smaller teams. So many companies jumped into the bandwagon and have licensed it to create so many amazing games. Today, it’s been used by many developers including Sony and Microsoft and currently, their major flagship titles such as Microsoft’s Senua’s Saga Hellblade 2, Redfall is being developed using it. In the past Sony exclusives such as Days Gone, Concrete Genie have utilised various amazing functions of this tool to create larger, beautiful worlds for us to enjoy.
Sumo India has used Unreal Engine on several games including Spyder, Snake Pass, Hood: Outlaws & Legends and Sackboy: A Big Adventure. Among all the mainstream game engines of the day, Unreal Engine stands out mainly due to the sheer number of tools it provides for all game development disciplines. This is one of the major reasons large studios like ours chose Unreal Engine 4 for many of our games. The engine packs with tools and tech that spans almost all aspects of video game development. It is very easy for a beginner to get lost in the myriad of amazing features of the engine.
“I would suggest It will be best to keep in mind to try not to take in everything at once! Take your time working through small projects featuring a tech or two, and slowly expand out as you start your climb on the learning curve,” says Jithin Peter, Principal Programmer at Sumo Pune.
Level designers, Animators, Programmers, and technical artists (to name a few) all work on the same engine hence the features offered by the tool are equally vast. So, mastering the engine as a whole can prove to be quite a challenge. Instead, it will be ideal for one to select the discipline of their choice and explore various features the engine offers.
According to Udain Singh Tomar, Senior Level Designer at Sumo Pune. “I used Unreal Engine 4 for rapid prototyping using its visual scripting system. Its many in-build features also help in cutting down overhead for the same. There is a lot of free and premium learning material online, so it is hard to run into a wall midway through a project”.
It's one of the best tools for any aspiring game development student to explore which can open a myriad of opportunities for you once you learn it.
Sumo India is looking for brilliant people to join its teams in Pune and Bangalore, with opportunities in various disciplines currently available.
