I started making my game a little over a year ago, and then had to put it on pause for about 10 months. The games completion is really hard to judge, I would guess maybe it’s around 1/3 of the way done? I started it in UE4, and now that I have some free time again I would like to continue my progress on it.
My game is not particularly big, it has a number of game modes, but they’re all just simple top down arcade style shooters. Would it be worth it to try to transfer the game over to UE5 and finish it there? One important thing to note is that I want this game to be playable on older consoles and slower computers.
So, when upgrading, the question you need to ask yourself is this.
“Are there any useful development features that could be put to use to lower development time and/or increase the quality of the final project and/or fix any bugs that are currently stopping the creation of my project?”
If no, stay in that version.
If yes, you then ask yourself:
“How much time would I save/ how much better would the end product be if I switched vs. the time it would take to do the switch over?” If the answer to this means a guaranteed loss of time instead of saving time, don’t.
The switch over can be a heavy task, especially from 4.x to 5.x, and the more versions there are between the two the rougher it gets. Also, overhead increases innately with version by a tiny bit, so if you want it to run on old hardware, the earliest version of UE you can use and still get the project out, the better. For what you’re describing, no, I would not upgrade, but for newer projects maybe start with the new options. You won’t need things like Nanite, Lumen, or animation graph overhaul, and those are the big reasons to swap, so I’d say keep it simple.
This is unrelated, but I needed to get this off my chest and let you know that everything you suggested was correct and it saved me a TON of time. I got a working prototype up and running in just a few hours.
The hardest part was getting the plane to fly.
I tried to acknowledge you in the original post, but it is locked:
Thanks, again! You’re the only person I could find that aligned with what I was going for.
Also, @Lowenfas, Shmoopy and Mind are absolutely correct.
That is a good way of looking at it. The only problem was that I really wasn’t sure what. UE5 could add to improve the quality, every video I watched talks about improvements for very large scale games and/or really high levels of details in textures, models, lighting, or particle effects… And none of those are relevant to me.
I just kept overthinking it, but I think I will do as you say; Keep it simple.
For what you’re describing, no, I would not upgrade, but for newer projects maybe start with the new options. You won’t need things like Nanite, Lumen, or animation graph overhaul, and those are the big reasons to swap, so I’d say keep it simple.