With increased competition from the likes of the (mostly) free-to-use Unity, Epic’s Unreal Engine isn’t as ubiquitous as it once was. But the particle-heavy, real-time lighting-infused version 4 has powered its fair share of games since launch in 2005, from indie darlings like Abzû through to triple-A titles like Gears of War 4.
If you’re a hardware company, getting baked-in support for your platform in Unreal’s developer tools remains important, which is why the latest UE update is good news for Nintendo. UE 4.15 includes support for the upcoming Nintendo Switch, making it it easier for developers to port games to the system. The Switch’s unloved predecessor, the Wii U, was never officially supported by UE4. While developers could create ports for Wii U without Epic’s tools, the time and investment required to do so didn’t jibe with the system’s lacklustre sales.
Support for the Switch in UE4 is currently described by Epic as “experimental,” but the company plans for it to be in a “shippable state” come the next update. Given the Switch is based on hardware from graphics card gurus Nvidia—hardware that is already supported in UE4 for devices like Nvidia’s Shield—full support is expected to arrive quickly. Indeed, one of the first UE4 games to launch on Switch will be Snake Pass, a quirky puzzle-platformer from Sumo Digital due for release in “early 2017.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Unreal Engine 4.15 supports Nintendo Switch, HDR, and AFR for Nvidia SLI