In the Unreal Fest Seattle 2024, Anna Donlon, who is SVP and Head of VALORANT Studios announced their plans of switching VALORANT to Unreal Engine 5. The game is currently using Unreal Engine 4.27, which was released in August 2021. So, what should you expect from the UE update? That’s what we’ll be covering here.
We know that Unreal Engine is known for being a game engine used by many ultra-realistic graphics games. It was great in realism even three years ago, but there have been significant developments since then, especially with the introduction of UE5. However, that does not directly mean that we will be seeing graphical overhaul with VALORANT in Unreal Engine 5.
If you are interested in what Anna Donlon had to say in the Unreal Fest Seattle 2024, then you can watch that on YouTube.
Expectations for VALORANT on Unreal Engine 5:
#1 – Better Performance:
I know, most of you must be afraid that the performance will downgrade with the update to the current version of Unreal Engine. However, that’s unlikely to happen. Instead, we should experience better performance once they have shifted to UE5, especially those with at least a bit modern hardware.
How?
First of all, VALORANT is known to be a game which works on most low-end PCs, and they want to continue with that. Their competitor, Counter-Strike, experienced serious performance degradation on lower end PCs after they released CS2, however, VALORANT won’t be seeing such changes.
Anna Donlon mentioned the same that the game won’t have any graphical overhaul and there won’t be any performance impact. At least initially.
Apart from that, Unreal Engine 5 also includes many performance optimizations. One of them is improved multi-threading performance, which VALORANT lacks right now. This should result in much better performance in computers having multiple threads because currently, VALORANT does not make the best use out of multiple threads even when you have enabled the option on your game settings.
If you have a gaming laptop, then you might be interested in reading the best ways to improve gaming performance on your gaming laptop.
#2 – DirectX 12 Support:
Another expectation we can keep is DirectX 12 support. VALORANT currently only supports DirectX 11, so it can support a wide range of devices whether they are old or new. However, there have been many improvements introduced with DX12 which VALORANT can take advantage of.
One of the improvements we could see with DX12 support in VALORANT would be shader caching. It might not be that useful for NVIDIA and Intel GPUs, but for AMD GPUs (especially on lower end GPUs or laptops), it can be quite useful.
Each time the game or your GPU drivers are updated, the game needs to rebuild shaders. So, your first few games can be quite a mess. It is usually known to be more of an issue on AMD GPUs. This will be improved with DX12 support, so you won’t face issues if you play right after a game or GPU driver update.
#3 – Physics Improvements:
With Unreal Engine 5, VALORANT devs can make use of Chaos Physics, instead of PhysX. Chaos Physics was already there when VALORANT was released, but it was in its early stages. However, now since it is the default physics engine in Unreal Engine 5, it should be stable enough for Riot Games to prefer it over NVIDIA’s PhysX.
With Chaos Physics, we might see better physics in the game in various ways, which includes (but not limited to):
- Better ragdoll movements.
- Better animations for abilities.
- Better animations for the players (agents).
- Better ragdoll animations.
- Better animation for breaking doors and bullets hitting wall.
#4 – Better Network Code:
While some of you might love VALORANT for its servers and some hate for dying from a ping abuser, we know that the devs are constantly trying to improve their net code. With Unreal Engine 5, there have been many improvements in the networking.
So, we can expect an improvement in network code, so we should experience less lags when our ping or packet loss is high.
#5 – Shadows and Lightning:
With UE5, there have been many improvements in shadows and lightnings whether it is quality or performance. Now, most of us prefer playing in low graphical settings, so most of you might not even been aware of shadows and lightnings in the game. However, there are many areas in the game with lights and shadows.
While there is no “live shadow” unlike CS2, however, the environment surely have some. So, if you are one of those who like to play FPS games at high settings then you might be able to experience better shadows and lightning in the game. It won’t be significant, but enough to notice.
#6 – Universe Expansion:
In her talks, Anna Donlon also mentioned the possibility of expansion of the VALORANT universe. Currently, there is no information on what she meant by the expansion.
Some people are assuming that it could be a new game mode, but I am not sure why would they need UE5 to create a new game mode. It could also be related to the MMO they have been working on. Maybe they will be closely relating it to the VALORANT universe.
However, as I mentioned before, we don’t have enough information about this. So, all of these are simply assumptions which might not even be remotely close to what they are working or planning on.
Conclusion:
The most important aspect for VALORANT will remain performance for them while they transition to Unreal Engine 5. Besides that, it will take a while before they shift to UE5. So, you should not be worried about throwing away your potato PC or laptop yet.
And as you might have read above, there won’t be any significant changes in the initial versions of VALORANT based on Unreal Engine 5. So, don’t expect anything drastic when they finally shift to the latest Unreal Engine.
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