As I’m sure you’re probably aware by now, The Day Before got delayed until March 1st 2023. One of the main reasons for the delay was that they were moving the game to Unreal Engine 5.
This was a disappointing yet understandable delay. Unfortunately, communications from the developer have been quiet! Up until a few days ago, when we had the promise of an announcement in early January.
Unreal Engine 5
There are two core technologies that will be used in Unreal Engine 5. Nanite and Lumen.
Nanite virtualized micropolygon geometry frees artists to create as much geometric detail as the eye can see. The Nanite virtualized geometry means that film-quality source art comprising hundreds of millions or billions of polygons can be imported directly into Unreal Engine—anything from ZBrush sculpts to photogrammetry scans to CAD data—and it just works. Nanite geometry is streamed and scaled in real time so there are no more polygon count budgets, polygon memory budgets, or draw count budgets; there is no need to bake details to normal maps or manually author LODs; and there is no loss in quality in Unreal engine 5.
Lumen is a fully dynamic global illumination solution that immediately reacts to scene and light changes. The system renders diffuse interreflection with infinite bounces and indirect specular reflections in huge, detailed environments, at scales ranging from kilometers to millimeters. Artists and designers can create more dynamic scenes using Lumen. For example, changing the sun angle for time of day, turning on a flashlight, or blowing a hole in the ceiling, and indirect lighting will adapt accordingly. Lumen erases the need to wait for lightmap bakes to finish and to author light map UVs—a huge time savings when an artist can move a light inside the Unreal Editor and the lighting looks the same as when the game is run on console.
We’re excited to hear about the announcement in Early January 2023. Keep your eyes pealed and we will bring you more information here.
