There are only a handful of games on the Windows Phone Store that really push the boundaries of graphics on mobile devices, compared to the competition that is. Whether the reason behind that is a lack of developer interest or the lack of tools and API’s to make that happen we’re not sure.
Epic Games, the developers behind Unreal Engine have recently stated that brining the graphics engine to Windows Phone still hasn’t been a priority to them compared to competing mobile operating systems. The company made the same comments earlier this year when asked about bringing the engine to Windows Phone and Windows RT devices.
“It hasn’t been a priority compared to iOS/Android so far. Waiting to see where new Microsoft management goes with the platform.” – Tim Sweeney, lead programmer at Epic Games
Sweeney’s comments indicate that the company is waiting for Microsoft’s to fully unveil its upcoming Windows 10 operating system that will unify Windows and Windows Phone, making development of software a lot easier across different platforms before they bring Unreal Engine 4 to Windows-based phones. Windows 10, and Windows 10 for phones are still a long way out from hitting the market, so it will be a while until we get to enjoy games developed with the engine.
Epics latest iteration of Unreal Engine supports full scene real-time HDR reflections, temporal anti-aliasing, GPU particle simulations and collision with dynamic lighting per particle and much, much more that will truly bring games to life on mobile platforms. It also support Microsoft’s DirectX 12 set of graphics API’s so it should feel right at home when it eventually launches on Windows 10 for phones.
Unreal Engine 4 is available for developers to license and use in their games for only $19 a month, which is a great deal considering how powerful the engine is, check out the video above to see how amazing games can look like with it.
Further reading: Epic Games, Microsoft, Unreal Engine, Windows 10, Windows Phone 10
