Unreal updates

Good Morning. The much anticipated Warzone Mobile launched, bringing players back to where it all started with the return of fan-favorite map Verdansk. With Rebirth Island expected to return to Warzone next season, Call of Duty players are getting the nostalgia wave Fortnite players got with Fortnite’s OG season.

— Derek

MAIN QUEST: State of Unreal

Every year at the Game Developers Conference, Epic Games gives a keynote address, covering major updates coming to both its Unreal Engine and Epic Games. This year the annual State of Unreal keynote showcased significant advancements in Epic Games' Unreal Engine and its integration into Fortnite. Among the highlights, Epic introduced Unreal Engine 5.4, featuring enhancements like Nanite Tessellation, volumetric rendering, and Motion Matching for character animation.

Award-winning writer and director Amy Hennig presented Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, a new game being built on Unreal Engine 5.4. The game features Captain America and Black Panther as playable characters and is scheduled to arrive in 2025.  

Epic also announced the expansion of Lego and Fortnite’s collaboration, as Lego elements are now available in both Fortnite Creative and the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN). Creators are now able to use Lego-branded templates and assets to create worlds and games on platforms. 

Additional updates coming to UEFN soon include a first-person camera mode and a physics sandbox option, indicating the platform's evolution beyond Fortnite's traditional battle royale modes.

Lastly, Epic reiterated its commitment to launching the Epic Games Store for both iOS and Android, which has been a major part of the compani’s ongoing battle with Apple. 

HUD

• 🪙 Electronic Arts, Miniclip, and Jagex each received warnings from the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency after the agency upheld complaints against each company. The complaints, all filed by the same academic research group, were based on specific paid Facebook ads that did not disclose paid loot boxes in the games they were promoting.

• ⚖️ Meta, Microsoft, X, and Match Group have joined Epic Games’ call for a federal court to find Apple in violation of a 2021 injunction that requires it to allow developers to include links in their apps to direct consumers to payment methods outside of going through Apple.

• 🤖 Roblox announced two new AI-powered creator tools to reduce time spent working on 3D models. The tools, Avatar Auto Setup and Texture Generator, are now available for creators and developers on the Roblox platform.

MAJOR W

• 🌽 In less than 24 hours from the release of its 1.6 patch, Stardew Valley shattered its peak concurrent players on Steam, reaching 146,159. The farming simulator’s previous high was 94,875in January 2021 following its 1.5 update.

• 🦖 Paramount+ unexpectedly released the first six episodes of ARK: The Animated Series. The show, based on ARK: Survival Evolved, features the voices of big names, including Vin Diesel, Gerard Butler, and Michelle Yeoh.

F IN THE CHAT

• 💿 The physical edition of Baldur’s Gate 3 for Xbox and PlayStation has been delayed due to production issues, with the discs now expected to start shipping between April and May. The Xbox version will be getting an additional disc, bringing the total up to 4.

• ⏪ Riot Games announced it is restarting development on its League of Legends MMO. The untitled game was first teased in 2019, and fans have been waiting for updates since. Riot co-founder Marc Merrill posted that the decision to reset development was to make sure it was different from other MMOs.

CAREER CORNER

• Finance Manager II - EA SPORTS — Electronic Arts (Orlando, FL)

• Graphic Designer/Video Editor — Black Soup (Berlin, Germany)

• Customer Relationship Management Specialist — Nintendo (Scoresby, Australia)

HIVE MIND

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