Unreal Engine Used For Zelda Wii U?

Last week’s Video Game Conference had a few unexpected mentions of the Zelda series. We already covered Cliff Bleszinski talking about how he was picked on as a kid for liking the Zelda series. Today we have something a little bit more interesting. Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games, has stated in an interview with Eurogamer that while he was impressed, he believes his studio’s Unreal Engine 3 could do so much more for the next Zelda on Wii U. Most of us have seen the Unreal Engine 3 in action and know what it is capable of, but how can Rein be so confident in it?

Make the jump inside for the full quote and a chance to give your own thoughts on the subject.

I like the Wii U. I think E3 will be a big eye-opener for people, it’s a great brand that a lot of parents really trust and they’re probably ready to buy their kids an HD Wii that does that much more than just being an HD Wii. I’d love it if they’d done it last year, but I’m excited for them to do it this year. I’d be shocked if it doesn’t do well.

Do you remember the Zelda demo they had on it? Would you not buy a Wii U just to play that? Of course you would, That’s what Nintendo is all about. Their hardware is the software delivery service for their great content. That Zelda demo was gorgeous and we can do even more than that with Unreal Engine 3. I think it will do great.

I played Batman: Arkham City on the Wii U and they are doing some really cool stuff with the controller, Did you play that Battle Mii game? Two players would play with a Wii Remote and Nunchuk and one would play with the Wii U controller? I would buy a Wii U to play that game in a heartbeat. And I hope people make those kind of games with our technology. I think we’ve yet to really see what the Wii U can do and I think at E3 this year they’re going to shock us.

If I had ten development teams I’d make a game for every single platform and make that the special game for that platform. If you’re the special game on that platform you do really, really well. Gears was one of the special ones on Xbox 360. Infinity Blade is a special game on the iPhone and iPad. Shadow Complex was a special game on Xbox Live Arcade. But we don’t have 10 development teams so it’s just a matter of picking and choosing what we do and doing the best thing we can for the idea that we have.

While I will agree that the Unreal Engine 3 is a fantastic engine for current generation consoles, I think it would be a waste on the next generation of consoles to be released. Epic Games is already preparing the Unreal Engine 4 and we have seen a few glimpses of what it is capable of. So, why would he bother talking about Unreal Engine 3? With the Wii U and whatever engine Nintendo is using for the next Zelda title, I think it would be far superior to an engine made for “last gen” consoles. An engine made specifically for the Wii U to take full advantage of its hardware capabilities would be leagues beyond an engine made for last gen games and to run on multiple platforms, instead of devoting itself to a single console.

Unreal Engine 4 is still in its development stages and all we have seen so far are rendered cutscenes, which isn’t even close to the leap we made from Unreal Engine 2 to Unreal Engine 3. To me it looks only a little better than the Frostbite 2 or the Crystal Tools engine, which is in my opinion a lot better than the Unreal Engine 3. We have yet to see how the in game gameplay would turn out. So until we do, I can only speculate that the actual gameplay would be only a little better than what we see on the more advanced games running on Unreal Engine 3. I honestly think the only benefit from using another company’s engine over creating their own, although it wouldn’t play as well or look as good, would be to just publish the game faster. This is something we know Nintendo doesn’t do. They tend to delay and work on their titles until they are perfect in their eyes to give us the best game possible.

Below is a video of some improvements made to the Unreal Engine 3 with a small look at the next gen Unreal Engine 4 shown off at the VGC followed by a video of what Link would look like rendered by the current Unreal Engine 3. Compare it to the tech demo shown at E3 and decide for yourself how you feel about Unreal Engine being used for the next Zelda title? Do you think Nintendo could really benefit from using another companies engine or do you think Mark Rein is just trying to give his company’s current engine one last big push before his next engine hits the market? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: IGN Via GoNintendo

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