Factor 5 Bashes Unreal Engine 3 and Gears

In an interview with the Factor 5 president Julian Eggebrecht about their upcoming PS3 exclusive—Lair (check out our hands-on preview for the same), the Mercury News got to know what he thinks of the Unreal Engine 3 and Gears of War. Here’s their conversation:

“Q: Some of the games all look good to me. This [Lair] looks great. Is there a big difference you can see between this and Gears of War?

A: In Gears of War there is no way you could actually go above the city and then basically go seamlessly from air to ground. Unreal Engine in the end just provides for corridor and corridor being more a metaphor here in terms of design. Our engine is always designed in a huge world bubble and that can be 32 kilometers by 32 kilometers. You can go anywhere at extreme speeds. Unreal Engine is dependent on the fact that you go relatively slowly through your world. With us, you can go through the world fast or slowly. If you are in night mode, or you are on the ground, you get all of the detail that Unreal Engine provides. But there is no way you can get the macro.”

Although Lair does look fantastic, I don’t think that it’s better looking than games that use the Unreal Engine 3—maybe equally good, but not better. Gears of War was the first title that used the UE3, and it’s still the best looking game out there; this only means that the games that’ll use the UE3 in the months to come, will only look better.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

[Via BeyondUnreal]