Gamertell

As Microsoft has already confirmed that Gears of War 2 is already in development and ready for a November 2008 release, Epic took to the stage at this year’s Game Developers Conference to discuses some of the changes and additions being made to their hugely successful Unreal Engine 3.

It should be noted that all of the updates and improvements made to the Unreal Engine were demonstrated showing Gears of War. While these are more than likely not scenes of the upcoming sequel, they do shed some light on what gamers can expect come this November.

At GDC the founder of Epic, Tim Sweeney, showed off some of the new improvements to the Unreal Engine 3. First he spoke about the ambient occlusion technology, which allows for the geometry of an object and its surroundings to be taken into account for shadows. Creating a greater representation of light reflecting off of its surfaces.

Sweeney also showed a scene of hundreds of locust enemy soldiers racing through the street, demonstrating that the engine now can handle more mobs on screen at one time then the engine had been able to before. This scene defiantly opens the door for massive battles for future game titles using the Unreal Engine.

Specular and environmental reflections were then shown against water and how objects such as explosions and gunfire react when disturbed. Water has been more and more impressive in games over the last couple of years, but this demonstration certainly showed that there is still plenty of room for improvements and innovations.

One of the more impressive aspects of what the new updated Unreal Engine 3 was, the fully interactive destructible environment. This had been promised early back when the original Gears of War was first revealed, but never quite got into the actual game by the time of its 2005 release on the Xbox 360. Now, with the right weapon and some creativity, the demonstration showed that the player would now be able to do some in-game remodeling, creation their own exits and cover with a few well placed bow-shots and grenades.

Last was shown was the newly developed body physics, shown in a humorous ball of meat. The new body physics system allows for the engine to respond realistically to forces that push against it, such as gun fire or a simple touch of the hand.

These new additions and improvements will no doubt continue to insure that Epic is well on its way to dominating the game industry with its incredibly popular game engine.

Here’s a video of the tech demo at GDC 2008:

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