Mass Effect 5 Will be Powered by Unreal Engine
A producer from BioWare has confirmed that Mass Effect 5 devs have ditched the Frostbite engine in favor of the Unreal Engine.
The new installment of the Mass Effect series is developed on the Unreal Engine technology. This information was revealed by Brenon Holmes, the game's producer, when he announced that BioWare is looking for programmers with experience from UE4/5 to work on the fifth installment of the sci-fi series.
The first speculations on this subject appeared in September, also thanks to job offers. Now it has been officially confirmed that the hired developers with experience in Unreal engine are to be workin on Mass Effect 5.
There's still a lot of time left until the release of the latest installment of the series, so the final version of the game will most likely run on Unreal Engine 5. Tools in this version of the engine are similar to those in UE4, so it's no wonder that BioWare is also interested in developers with experience in working on the fourth generation of this technology.
Confirmation of using the Unreal Engine is very good news. The first three installments of the series ran on earlier versions of this technology. It wasn't until Mass Effect: Andromeda that the series switched to Frostbite and it was one of the major reasons why the game failed. The engine was simply unsuitable for an RPG and it's mechanics. This technology also caused BioWare a lot of problems during the development of Anthem and Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Using the Unreal Engine should enable developers to focus on creating the game instead of fighting with tools not suited to their needs. It will also make life much easier for new employees who will already have experience with this engine. Frostbite is only used by studios owned by Electronic Arts, so people coming in from outside the company's teams always have to spend a lot of time getting familiar with the technology. The recent example of Battlefield 2042 shows just how important this is - it was supposed to take six months to upgrade to the latest Frostbite, but the whole process took a year and a half, largely because key developers have left DICE.
BioWare has not revealed the planned release date of Mass Effect 5. Fans of the franchise have no reason to complain, though. This year they received a remastered trilogy of Commander Shepard's adventures in the form of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, and it was recently reported that Amazon is planning a TV adaptation of the games.
