All mainstream engines are closed source, if you meant that? Carmack planned to make successive idTech versions open source and then himself turned on that decision and closed it completely. All this before being bought by Zenimax
Not aware whether they are still licensing it to third party devs at all (closed/open )- like how Epic does with Unreal. I would be a shame if they are not.
However, none of this should stop Xbox/Beth from promoting this as the #1 candidate for game engines internally for XGS and Beth. I understand the convenience that Epic has brought onto the scene with enough tech purchases to make Unreal run swimmingly well. But maybe, it is time to take a stand for an alternative there for the first party stuff too.
There are three studios on various versions of the engine. Arkane, id and Machinegames. Time for the others to join in too, I suppose.
Totally agree on the stand that Epic (and ultimately Tencent) should not be made ultra powerful with heavy dependence on their game engine.
Just a couple of days ago, I’ve talked to a dev who is working on a couple of big games in UE5. They told me UE5 is basically miles ahead of every other engine out there. It’s super easy to use and customise so no wonder why everyone is dropping their in-house tools for Unreal.
Because it has been available for so long community and Epic has built a lot of tools, fixed various issues and so on. Unlike proprietary engines that were available only to inhouse teams.
“Miles ahead” - not sure. Lumen most definitely more than Nanite is piece de resistance.
However ,Creation engine for endless map-streaming or idTech built for fast performance are still fairly cutting edge.
But super convenient - absolutely! They have made sure that they are the middleware that everyone needs with enough support and ancillary feature tech-purchases.
However, they will never be as close to hardware as idTech is right now.
The rumors going around were verified as untrue. The game has been in development since 2017.
The team members working on Fable were hired to do exactly that, and their experience working on large-scale rpgs and action games played a huge part in their hiring. Therefore, it is not like the team lacks experience working on such games, in fact, the majority of their team was hired for their experience working on such games.
Shame they tackled on PG since they’re the developers that won’t show the game until the game is releasing within the same year. If I recall correctly, all Forza Horizon titles showcase happened within the same year release. I can’t say that will happen with Fable, but if it is the case, then everyone can rile up on them since they wont speak until it is ready.
I think they will show Fable within 12 months of release, not necessarily within the same year. For example, if it’s Spring 2024 (big if) then we will see it at this coming E3. If it’s Fall 2024 (more likely) then we’ll see it at this year’s TGAs or next E3.
Something like Microsoft behind it and the Game Pass can ensure their continuity and total creativity and freedom this Studio is so talented probably one of the only Studios still to have this very special Japanese soul when we look at Square Enix, Capcom, SEGA they are westernizing while Level-5 remains, like Mistwalker, a studio that is deeply attached to its Japanese roots, it’s very precious to keep that.
If they really are in that bad a shape, it should be exactly what MS is after
It saves a studio and it gets MS the kind of content they need to diversify Game Pass, it also takes the financial risk out of it where they no longer need to rely on sales as much
Gimme that Dark Cloud 3 spiritual successor, those games were amazing and it’s tragic that Sony never continued it
It will be interesting to see Microsoft’s approach to japanese companies. I am not sure if these games want to abandon Switch or PS despite having financial trouble. Microsoft is not a charity either, though these companies are pretty cheap.
I presume a lot of smaller companies suffered simply by betting on either pure Playstation or pure Switch without PC at least.
Correct me if I’m wrong but Level-5 doesn’t appear to make any IP that is associated with Xbox? They’re games seem smaller scale and more associated with the DS and Nintendo Switch. I’m not so sure that they can find success on Xbox but wait,
Xbox is also trying to focus on mobile now, and Level-5 seems to make quite a few mobile games. Maybe they should go after Level-5, but they’re games don’t seem like systems sellers for a home console.
Not so sure if this calls for acquisition when the company doesn’t seem to have much value for the console. Maybe they could give them a publishing deal on a cloud or mobile game first to see if it’s a good partnership?
Running a publisher/developer is expensive and I’m not so sure where Level-5 would fit in the culture of Xbox Game Studios. Especially when Microsoft doesn’t seem to be popular among the smaller JRPG mobile type games.
I think their upcoming game - Inazuma Eleven - is coming to PS4/PS4/Switch/Android/iOS only even. I guess not betting on PC backfired for a lot of smaller japanese devs these days.
Battle of Shiroyama proved that 
