MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Epic Games has released the latest version of its Unreal Engine, 4.21, with one goal in mind: “work smarter and create faster,” the announcement said.
Among the key additions to this new version is an improved Niagara effects toolset, which is now supported on Nintendo Switch and has received numerous quality of life improvements, which you can read about in details in this blog post.
Unreal Engine 4.21 introduces the Replication Graph Plugin, making it easier to build large-scale multiplayer experiences. It has also been optimised for mobile development and for this aspect we can thank Epic’s hit Fortnite as the optimisations were initially developed for its Android and iOS release.
Cook times have also been improved, with the speed being increased by up to 60 per cent when cooking content.
Also launching in this new version is Pixel Streaming, allowing devs to stream interactive content simply by sharing a link. “Available in Early Access, Pixel Streaming opens a whole new avenue to deploy apps in a web browser with no barrier to entry and no compromise on rendering quality,” the announcement said.
On top of all the updates, Epic said that it made 121 improvements to the engine following contributions from the community on GitHub. While the full list of these improvements was not provided, Epic did thank each contributor in a list that you can find in the blog post, if reading a list of names is your thing.
“Unreal Engine 4.21 continues our relentless pursuit of greater efficiency, performance, and stability for every project on any platform,” the announcement, written by senior technical writer Jeff Wilson, said. “We made it easier to work smarter and create faster because we want your imagination to be the only limit when using our tools. And we battle-tested the engine on every platform until it met our developers’ high standards so your project will shine once it is ready for the masses. We are always looking for ways to streamline everyday tasks so developers can focus on creating meaningful, exciting, and engaging experiences.”
To read all the details about this update, head to the original post.
