Playdeadhas earned a position as one of the gaming industry’s most exciting indie game developers, with its first two games both being critically acclaimed award winners.Limbooffered a dark story of a lost boy searching for his sister, whileInsidedelivered a stranger tale of a boy searching for something else entirely. Little is known about Playdead’s next project other than it’s a third-person game in a 3D world. A new Playdead job listing has added a new detail, indicating that the new game is built on Unreal Engine 5.
The job listing in question is for an Experienced Landscape Artist on Playdead’s development team. The job listing references an expectation for the applicant to “meet technical performance requirements in Unreal Engine 5.” While the job listing doesn’t explicitly state it’s forPlaydead’s known project, which doesn’t have an announced name, it does reference a “large, third-person, open-world” game. Barring the project being rebooted, it’s safe to assume this is the game Playdead’s been working on sinceInside.
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Unreal Engine 5’s usage for the new game is by no means a surprise. In 2020, Playdead announced a publishing partnership with Epic Games. Epic Games confirmed it would provide the full development costs of the new game as well as Unreal Engine development support. There was always the possibility of Playdead usingUnreal Engine 4, given the studio’s lack of experience with the platform.Limbowas built on a custom engine andInsidewas made using Unity.
Playdead was also directly mentioned by Epic during itsThe State of Unreal 2022 presentationas a partner involved with Unreal Engine 5. There was no explicit mention of Playdead’s previously-confirmed project, however. The job listing makes it that much more explicit.
Part of what makes the situation so cloudy is that Playdead has been working on its new game since 2016. The game itself was publicly confirmed in 2017. The partnership with Epic followed in 2020 and Unreal Engine 5 only arrived in April earlier this year, though Playdead undoubtedly has had earlier access to the engine. The timeline all but confirms Playdead has likely made dramatic changes over the course of its game’s development, maybe even changing its engine outright multiple times.
What matters now, though, is thatPlaydead’s open-world sci-fi gameis seemingly an Unreal Engine 5 project. The capabilities of Unreal Engine 5 have only really been hinted at so far, so expectations for the new Playdead game are going to be very high. Considering what Playdead did withLimboandInside, it’s well-prepared for these lofty expectations.
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