eFootball PES 2022 and Unreal Engine: what awaits us?

eFootball PES 2022 and Unreal Engine

eFootball PES 2022 will use Unreal Engine instead of Fox Engine, with the latter now in the final phase of retirement started after the separation between Konami and Hideo Kojima. A delicate step not only for the change of engine on which the new edition of the football simulation will see the light, but also for what will be the debut of the PES franchise on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S.

Mindful of the problems encountered during the previous generational leaps, as you know Konami preferred to publish eFootball PES 2021 (here our review) as an update of the previous version, skipping the appointment with the release of the new consoles to concentrate all its efforts on development of eFootball PES 2022. Since the first teaser trailer, several months have now passed, during which in reality the details provided by Konami on this new chapter have been practically zero.

Waiting for the summer season to arrive and together with it the phase of the year in which typically FIFA and PES begin to fight each other to the sound of announcements and details, we decided to try to imagine what it could mean for eFootbal l PES 2022 the use of Unreal Engine.

Unreal Engine 4 or Unreal Engine 5?

The first question that fans of the football series ask themselves is what will be the version of Unreal Engine used for the realization of eFootball PES 2022. A non-trivial question, to which we try to answer based on the few elements we have at our disposal at this time. Let's first consider the release times, both for eFootball PES 2022 and for the new Unreal Engine 5. Except for twists, as regards the football title, the time window is quite clear and known, and it is the one that goes from end August to early October. Considering that to see the final version of Unreal Engine 5 we will have to wait until the end of this 2021, we would therefore be led to think that at least for this edition eFootball PES 2022 will move with Unreal Engine 4.

Except twists and turns , we said, because the fact that Konami is not publishing content on the game could mean something different. To support this theory we find the announcement of Epic Games, according to which the titles developed with Unreal Engine 4 will be compatible with the new version, from which they can then draw improvements. If eFootball PES 2022 should surprise us and make the direct jump to Unreal Engine 5, having in any case passed most of the development phase on the previous version, we can imagine that the news shown by Epic Games with the tech demo Lumen in the land of Nanite will be missing. .

Staying on the subject of the latest technologies made available by Unreal Engine, we cannot ignore the new MetaHuman Creator, with which Epic Games has made available (for now in early access) a tool for creating virtual characters with extremely realistic faces and expressions. MetaHuman's technology will also be compatible with Unreal Engine 4 and therefore sounds like sweet music to the ears of those who would like to see faces even more similar to those of real footballers, but what is difficult for us to imagine is that Konami can start modeling everyone. as many players' faces in eFootball PES 2022. A selection could obviously be made, starting with the best known ones and / or the teams with exclusive licenses, or perhaps MetaHuman could be used to give an extra boost to the cutscenes of the Master League. Everything to see.

What awaits us then?

Beyond the latest innovations available in terms of technology, eFootball PES 2022 will be able to enjoy some features inherent in the same passage from Fox Engine to Unreal Engine. In fact, abandoning a Konami proprietary engine to use one that is widespread among developers around the world means being able to enjoy all the good practices accumulated by others over the years. In a similar way, the stresses coming from various fronts with which Unreal Engine has had to contend in the course of its life have certainly allowed it to evolve in several aspects, with respect to which Fox Engine was perhaps lagging behind.

C ' it must be said that even with the old engine the PES development team has often shown some gaps, especially in terms of light management: just see the difference with Metal Gear Solid V to realize it, or what modders can do making the PC version of the game much better looking. From eFootball PES 2022 obviously a leap forward is expected thanks to ray tracing, with which the representation of the stadiums in the various phases of day and night lighting should provide a more realistic level of glance. We also expect other steps forward in the quality of the way the turf and the audience present in the stands are represented.

And the gameplay?

eFootball PES 2021, Cristiano Ronaldo. At this point, let's see what Unreal Engine can do for the gameplay of eFootball PES 2022. The front on which a large part of this game will be played will be linked to animations, an aspect on which Konami has worked extensively in recent editions, but can still be improved in certain situations. Also in this case the difference compared to a proprietary engine such as the Fox Engine can help developers, who will have the possibility to access elements made available by third parties as well as specific Unreal Engine tools for an even more realistic realization of the twenty-two. in the field. Among the various specific movements, we hope to be able to see a race that is a little less robotic and more human.

The characteristics of the Epic Games engine also allow us to have some more expectations also in terms of artificial intelligence. The most striking case is that which concerns the situation in which a ball is passed halfway between one player and another, a phase of uncertainty in which the one controlled by the player does not respond as it should when the ball approaches. In general, players should become more aware of the space that surrounds them and of the elements present in it, consequently also limiting the situations in which in the past they ended up colliding with each other.

As already mentioned , for the moment all we have done are mere conjectures. The season of announcements is almost upon us, so all we have to do is keep our ears straight to pick up what will be the first details of eFootball PES 2022 provided by Konami.

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