Gameplay Journal Entry #2

Over the last month I have been slowly playing through Crash Bandicoot 4 : It’s About Time and from the start of the game I knew right away it was developed using Unreal Engine 4(UE4). UE4 is one of the most popular game engines in the industry, being made by Epic Games back in the 1990s. This engine has bested the test of time throughout the last decades due to its versatility in content creation, and its ease of access to amateur and professional game designers. Having played dozens of games that use this engine, as well as working with the engine itself for class projects I can admit that there is a sort of ‘feeling’ and ‘look’ you get from the engine that is instantly recognizable. As stated by Henry Lowood “the game engine stuck as a way of designating a reusable platform for efficiently developing several games” (Lowood, pg. 206) and to me Unreal Engine is a testament to his words.

Being the fourth iteration in the engine it is evident Unreal Engine is reusable and has concrete extensibility. What UE4 does best is its ability to give programmers and level designers maximum control over their code and assets. With a mix of blueprint programming and C++ UE4 allows for modification and tinkering of the engine to better fit a certain genre or type of game. From a graphical powerhouse triple A third person shooter like Gears of War to a colorful cartoon style platform such as Crash Bandicoot 4 UE4 is able to place players into worlds that feel immersive and true to the vision of the developer. With the announcement of Unreal Engine 5 last year it is clear that the idea and use of the game engine in the videogame industry is a vital piece to the puzzle of game development.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time (PS5) 4K 60FPS HDR Gameplay — YouTube

Lowood, Henry. “Debugging Game History : A Critical Lexicon”. MIT Press, 2016. E-book.