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Alien: Isolation 2 will use Unreal Engine 5, and not the Cathode Engine | Creative Assembly is planning a multi-year release plan for the game

IbizaPocholo

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
www.dsogaming.com

Alien: Isolation 2 will use Unreal Engine 5 and not the Cathode Engine

According to Creative Assembly, Alien Isolation 2 will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, and not by the Cathode Engine.
www.dsogaming.com www.dsogaming.com

According to Creative Assembly, Alien Isolation 2 will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, and not by the Cathode Engine.

This information comes straight from Creative Assembly. Right now, the company is looking for a Senior Development Manager. And, as the job listing specifically states, Alien Isolation 2 will be using Unreal Engine 5.

"This is an excellent opportunity for a talented Senior Development Manager to join the sequel to ALIEN:ISOLATION being built in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5). "
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This will obviously disappoint a lot of people. While Alien Isolation had some technical issues when it came out, it had an amazing atmosphere, and it ran incredibly well. Then again, that game came out over a decade ago. So, I guess the Creative Assembly did not update the Cathode Engine to be as advanced as UE5?

Anyway, the good news is that Alien: Isolation 2 is in a very early development phase. Since CA is looking for people to work on it, we can safely say that we won't see it until 2028. We can also assume that it will at least be using Unreal Engine 5.6.
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Help define and deliver a long-term roadmap and scope an ambitious multi-year release plan for the project
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Episode 5 What GIF by The Office
 
At least they're still using their own engines for the Total War games https://www.totalwar.com/news/welcome-to-total-war-medieval-iii
we now have Warcore - the next evolution of our game engine. It's unlike anything we've worked with before, offering a bespoke set of new and improved tools across our animation system, to the renderer and campaign building blocks - all designed to bring the medieval era to life in ways we've previously never been able to achieve.
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IbizaPocholo said:
www.dsogaming.com

Alien: Isolation 2 will use Unreal Engine 5 and not the Cathode Engine

According to Creative Assembly, Alien Isolation 2 will be powered by Unreal Engine 5, and not by the Cathode Engine.
www.dsogaming.com www.dsogaming.com


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UE5 whether we like it or not is cutting edge and has enabled smaller teams to compete and in some cases better the bigger teams using in house engine's. Also like it mentions in the article the old engine used for the first one is obsolete now.
 
Negotiator101 said:
UE5 whether we like it or not is cutting edge and has enabled smaller teams to compete and in some cases better the bigger teams using in house engine's. Also like it mentions in the article the old engine used for the first one is obsolete now.
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Exactly! I love this news.
 
Negotiator101 said:
UE5 whether we like it or not is cutting edge and has enabled smaller teams to compete and in some cases better the bigger teams using in house engine's. Also like it mentions in the article the old engine used for the first one is obsolete now.
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I think it depends on what kind of game you're making. There's no such thing as a single tool that can do everything really well. UE5 will probably be a perfect fit for an Alien Isolation game, so yeah this is a smart choice, but it probably wouldn't work so well for Total War, so I'm glad they're sticking to their guns and updating their in-house engine for those games.
 
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Not bad news per se, for Hyena's they already heavily modified UE5 to gain performance. Much like CD Project RED is doing.
I think they are pretty capable to make this look and run great on any platform.
 
I remember the first Alien Isolation looking effortlessly good, it was one of the first PS4 games which looked really next gen.
I hope Alien Isolation 2 will look even better.
 
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I mean, isn't that obvious? It's probably too late to update a decade old custom engine. A.I wasn't supposed to get a sequel until SEGA had a change of heart.
 
Such a shame but I guess it'll be fine as it's not open world.

I have an unreasonable amount of disdain towards UE5 because many of my favourite "fun" games have atrocious performance due to it: Borderlands 4, Oblivion Remastered, Ark Survival Ascended, Grounded 2 and Stalker 2.
 
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Rocinante618 said:
Such a shame but I guess it'll be fine as it's not open world.

I have an unreasonable amount of disdain towards UE5 because many of my favourite "fun" games have atrocious performance due to it: Borderlands 4, Oblivion Remastered, Ark Survival Ascended, Grounded 2 and Stalker 2.
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Not sure about Borderlands and Oblivion, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 uses outdated UE5 (5.1 iirc) and that's why performance is so shit and visually it's not on par with modern games using latest engine UE5 (or at the very least 5.4).
 
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Of course it has to be some multi year, decade long release because SEGA suuuuck. They can't just release a good game, can they ?
 
Agent_4Seven said:
Not sure about Borderlands and Oblivion, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 uses outdated UE5 (5.1 iirc) and that's why performance is so shit and visually it's not on par with modern games using latest engine UE5 (or at the very least 5.4).
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hopefully we get the engine upgrade in the 2.0 version probably next year lol, I'll be surprised if they ship the engine upgrade when they launch the dlc, visually I agree, the tree canopies have insane TAA blur when moving
 
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That's unfortunate. I thought that the first game looked stellar. And what the fuck is a "multi-year release" plan? Can they just make the fucking game? I guess they want to have DLCs for a couple of years or so?
 
It just means year 1 is release and then pad the game out with a few releases of DLC chapters or side stories over 2 years.
Like how some player games these days have 'roadmaps'
 
Multi year release plan is typical for SEGA.

They know they hype behind this game and will milk the fuck out of it for as long as possible.

I'll pick up the complete edition later down the road.
 
uncreativename said:
I think it depends on what kind of game you're making. There's no such thing as a single tool that can do everything really well. UE5 will probably be a perfect fit for an Alien Isolation game, so yeah this is a smart choice, but it probably wouldn't work so well for Total War, so I'm glad they're sticking to their guns and updating their in-house engine for those games.
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Entirely possible. There's a few demos on Youtube of people making RTS games with UE5. You can make any genre/kind of game with Unreal.
The Cockatrice said:
what the fuck is a multi-year release? Different platforms over the year....or..?
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Updates and new content releases over years instead of 1 big game - nothing for years - another big game, etc.
 
Loomy said:
Entirely possible. There's a few demos on Youtube of people making RTS games with UE5. You can make any genre/kind of game with Unreal.
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Definitely possible, but the Total War games are doing it at a very high level with thousands of detailed characters onscreen on large maps and the ability to quickly zoom out very far and in very close, which isn't really what UE5 is best at by default.
 
the bestter question is if it will have actually decent gameplay this time, or if they stick with the trash they did in the first game.
 
Not that big of a surprise, their own engine used for first Alien Isolation is very old now and they weren't using it in other products to at least attempt to keep it modern.

Too bad that for the same reason we probably won't get a next-gen patch to upgrade the visuals and performance a bit.
 
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I just don't like how Lumen lighting usually looks in UE5 games. It's always so fizzly in the games I've played with the exception of Fortnite, which is super clean.
 
The engine wasn't a priority in alien isolation but it's something to keep an eye on, I did not see a sequel coming.
 
Hudo said:
That's unfortunate. I thought that the first game looked stellar. And what the fuck is a "multi-year release" plan? Can they just make the fucking game? I guess they want to have DLCs for a couple of years or so?
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I was almost thinking released episodes since people complained about the length of the first. Horrific thought. I hope to god it's just DLC they're talking about.

You guys had the gameplay PERFECT with the first. Bring back the invincible Alien, make a couple different factions to play around with (joes, humans, maybe some of the new species from Alien: Earth that aren't invincible), make the map an interactable sandbox like the first but expanded, and even keep the length. For the love of god, just make Isolation 2.
 
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The plan for this game, is a prime example of how the gaming industry has turned for the worse, with the first game you got what you paid for, day one, no padding out over the years to get the "definitive edition"....also the fact that they are looking for a senior development manager means this game is a looong way off from release...probably looking at 2028 if we are lucky..
 
uncreativename said:
Definitely possible, but the Total War games are doing it at a very high level with thousands of detailed characters onscreen on large maps and the ability to quickly zoom out very far and in very close, which isn't really what UE5 is best at by default.
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By default, no. And a purpose built engine as mature Warscape or the new one(Warcore?) will almost always outperform it in simulating those types of interactions. But it is possible. So go build your Total War competitor!
 
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Rocinante618 said:
Such a shame but I guess it'll be fine as it's not open world.

I have an unreasonable amount of disdain towards UE5 because many of my favourite "fun" games have atrocious performance due to it: Borderlands 4, Oblivion Remastered, Ark Survival Ascended, Grounded 2 and Stalker 2.
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Same here. The engine is fucking trash.
 
www.thegamer.com

Alien: Isolation Fans Have A Pretty Convincing Idea On Where The Sequel Takes Place

One fan has a solid idea for where Alien: Isolation 2 may be set, and it's all thanks to the ending of the controversial mobile game Blackout.
www.thegamer.com www.thegamer.com

From the 25-second clip alone, all you can make out is that it's raining and there's a bird. There's not a lot to work with when deciphering what exact celestial body we might be visiting. However, u/Tall_Ad_1426 made an interesting point: the iOS-exclusive game Blackout ends with Amanda Ripley leaving a recorded message, revealing that she is now charting a course for a manufacturing colony and should arrive there in three days, with the intent to continue on to Earth.

KOI–125.01 is only mentioned in Blackout, so details on the colony are scarce. But assuming Isolation 2 continues Amanda Ripley's story, rather than introducing a newcomer to the franchise, it would make sense to pick up where things left off. However, Blackout was developed by D3 Go, not Creative Assembly, and while it may have followed Amanda Ripley just days after Isolation, Fox stressed that it is not a sequel.

What Happened After Blackout?

Regardless, there's no information on what happened at the mining colony. We know that Amanda got back to Earth thanks to the comic book sequel Resistance, in which she stumbles on a Weyland-Yutani black site experimenting with colonists, but there's a convenient gap between the ending of Blackout and her arrival back home. Creative Assembly could plug that gap.
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