So, cool news, it's exciting to be moving past the demoscene portion of UE5 and get some actual games on it.
...I am confused what this means right now though? (Same as some others in the thread have said, I don't think it's clear what it means to be "running on UE5" yet this early on.) So hopefully we'll get a little more clarity soon on what the state of the project actually is for UE5 and how it has factored into the development process.
Because we just saw a few weeks ago what explained to be the current state of working with UE5 on Xbox Series X via that GDC demo/talk, and it's
some rocks that catch fire. I'm grossly summing what the Alpha Point project was made for here (it wasn't just to show off, they did it for analysis and process workout and constructive feedback,) but The Coalition tells of how it is building up the basic blocks for MS as they work as a foundation studio with Epic to optimize and run tests for the engine on the console so that it's ready for all Xbox game developers to use it; then GSC Game World comes around less than a month later casually saying that they're in full production with UE5 and will have a game on it in a year. It's confusing, which is it: is UE5 still in a liquid state that's still being shaped for use, or is UE5 almost ready to ship games with?
Thing is, I think it may be both, and it'll be interesting to see how games announce using this tech, because UE5 is a different upgrade path from UE4. Instead of rewriting everything, it's almost a polish and new technology system layered on top of a solid base. To use Nanite and Lumen, you practically just flip a switch on your compatible UE4 assets. (And you don't have to use either and can still be making a "UE5 game", but then, what's the advantage there besides some of the dev suite improvements if the engine is otherwise more or less the same as UE4?) Almost all of the amazing
UE5 demos you see on Youtube are actually projects built in UE4 and converted up, with Lumen substituted for the original lighting system (some of which used raytracing and other third-party lighting plugins previously and looked really good if not better before Lumen,) and/or maybe some Nanite replication thrown in to show off. Basically, when UE5 is finished and stable and shipped, it seems like there will be no reason NOT to have every Unreal game deployed as a UE5 game. Almost everything could benefit from porting up, and there's a fallback method in place for past-gen platforms that cannot use Nanite and Lumen, you have to build the project for both and replace everything Nanite or Lumen gives (as well as suffer the performance hit if you put a bajillion Nanite elements in and can't simplify them enough...) Unless something goes wrong with the new systems, UE5 will be everything UE4 is, but better, and potentially WAY better if you use Nanite and Lumen.
So, good news here to get UE5 things started, although what we're ultimately looking out for isn't just, "My game is a UE5 game"; we're looking for somebody to say, "My game was made from scratch to make full use of UE5." Meaning, we built our landscapes for "infinite" micropolygon meshes, we constructed our scenes with Lumen lighting in mind, we designed our sounds for MetaSounds, etc. What will be the difference between a game that was in the works normally in Unreal versus a game that was built ground-up for UE5 features. And also, will there be a big "leap" when that happens, or will it feel more like a gradual curve? (There's already some amazing tech services out there, and the combo of UE4+next-gen+money/time can already be incredible even without the advancements of UE5.)
I don't think STALKER 2 is at game that leaps into that latter category. It's been in the works since 2018, and it's releasing in April of next year. (UE5 may not even be out of Early Access by then and is still in core development right now, though maybe it's stable enough for GSC to build upon it if they already have all their UE4 systems solid and in good shape against the preview build?) But that's not a bad thing! As a game in the former category, it impresses right away, whether or not the trailer we saw was UE5 production material, and them using UE5 this early on (we've only had a handful of developers committing to UE5 so far, which feels low for how amazing the 2020&2021 demos were so hopefully that'll ramp up) is promising news that the tech and tools are in shape to go into retail projects.