GTA: What Unreal Engine 5 means for the future of Grand Theft Auto

Epic Games recently unveiled a brand new game engine called the Unreal Engine 5.

The new game engine has the ability to create incredible visuals that were recently demonstrated in a live stream.

Keep reading to see why the new game engine can change the future of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) games.

Unreal Engine 5 Reveal

The Unreal Engine 5 was revealed on a live-stream hosted by Youtube account, thegameawards.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch the truly stunning video below:

This video shows Unreal Engine 5 running on a PS5 dev kit, with the visuals outputted through an HDMI cable, so this a truly accurate depiction of what graphics could look like on the PS5.

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But what does this mean for the future of GTA titles?

What Unreal Engine 5 means for GTA

There are several features from the Unreal Engine 5 that would revolutionise GTA’s visuals:

• Developers can bounce lighting from numerous sources off items in real-time – you can imagine how Rockstar could utilise this when the GTA world moves from day to night
• Developers will be able to drop film-quality assets straight into games, meaning that the cutscenes of missions could look like a movie
• Unreal Engine 5’s improved audio could result in even more immersive GTA experience, adding ambience to the bustling city or the quiet countryside

Head here for a deeper dive into the all-new Unreal Engine 5.

When could Unreal Engine 5 come to GTA?

Well, here’s the bad news, as this game engine may never be used to develop a GTA title!

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Rockstar currently uses their own game engine, called RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine), so you can't imagine that Rockstar will outsource this function.

However, Unreal Engine 5 sets a new standard of graphics and you'd expect that Rockstar has something similar in development.

Therefore, although it is unlikely that any future GTA titles will use Unreal Engine 5, we could well see similarly exquisite graphics from the RAGE team.

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