“We have squeezed literally every ounce of everything we could get out of UE4”; Anna Donlon announces that Valorant will move to Unreal Engine 5
The move to UE5 will not affect the game’s visuals or performance immediately, but it has been deemed necessary for its future success.
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Among the speakers to take the stage during the opening session of Unreal Fest Seattle 2024 was Anna Donlon, the SVP and studio head of Valorant. Donlon announced that the developers atRiot Gamesare porting the competitive, live-service first-person shooter toUnreal Engine 5and teased additionalValorantprojects.
Valorant, a hyper-competitive, tactical 5v5 shooter, is not known for being a “graphics-forward” game, which Donlan acknowledges during her presentation. “We wanted our game to be truly global,” said Donlan, “One that not only reflects and celebrates our global communities but also supports them by running on machine specs that sometimes feel downright uncomfortable.” Donlan attributes Unreal Engine with providing a foundation that was adaptable and flexible, providing developers the freedom to focus on innovation as opposed to focusing on the game’s engine. She goes so far as to say that without Unreal Engine, Valorant couldn’t exist.
Donlan also shares that Valorant is currently running on Unreal Engine version 4.27. “We have squeezed literally every ounce of everything we could get out of UE4, so now we make the move to UE5,” said Donlan. Despite the leap in engine technology, the new upgrade is not expected to mark any dramatic shift in Valorant’s visual fidelity or overall performance, so much as it is expected to provide a foundation for future projects.
“Maybe those devs are working on something I can’t talk about,” said Donlan, “Maybe those devs are thinking about ways to expand the Val universe into new playable experiences. Maybe we feel very fortunate to have everything UE5 can offer at our disposal.”
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Valorant was, first and foremost, designed as a PC game but launched onXboxandPlayStationearlier this year. “FPS on console? Sure. But a tactical shooter on a console? Especially one that’s trying to deliver the gameplay experience that we are? We really couldn’t wrap our heads around it,” said Donlan. Donlan adds that if Valorant had been developed on a PC-first proprietary game engine, the console ports may not have happened, as Riot had never launched a live-service title on console.
According to Donlon, Unreal Engine’s support for multiple platforms provided features like rendering implementations and platform native input handling on a readily optimized engine. These features gave the development team the ability to focus on core gameplay mechanics, anti-cheat, and other elements of Valorant rather than focusing on the porting process.
“Millions of players are playingVal on consolenow, and we owe a huge part of that to our relationship with Unreal,” Donlan revealed. Valorant currently has 35 million players across all platforms.
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Cole is the resident Call of Duty know-it-all and indie game enthusiast for Windows Central. She’s a lifelong artist with two decades of experience in digital painting, and she will happily talk your ear off about budget pen displays.
