Speaking with G4TV at the DICE Summit, Rein says that “people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4 and how much more profound an effect it will have.” Some reports also claim that that Unreal 4 has been running on a variety of hardware “"including systems we can't name yet.”
With Unreal Engine 3 currently utilised in games across multiple platforms, including PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and iPad, presumably Rein is talking about unannounced next-gen hardware, perhaps the iPad 3 or the Xbox 720?
Other than an impressive tech demo shown at GDC last year, we’ve heard little about Unreal 4 other that Epic’s plans for it to be the powerhouse behind many games in 2014.
Samaritan tech demo
shown at GDC was an enhanced version on Unreal 3 and shows the
potential of Unreal 4.
It seems likely that Epic will choose E3 in June as the platform to showcase Unreal 4, which is also where we’re likely to hear announcements about the next era of consoles from Sony and Microsoft.
The Unreal Engine has been used to power dozens of top titles, including the Gears of War and Mass Effect franchises. Unreal 3 supports many advanced techniques including high dynamic range rendering (HDRR), per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows. Lord knows what the capabilities of Unreal 4 will be, but knowing Epic, it's going be mighty impressive.
