Highlights
- EA Motive's upcoming Iron Man game will be developed using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5, marking a shift away from its in-house Frostbite engine.
- Unreal Engine 5 has become widely used by many third-party and first-party development studios, with notable games like Immortals of Aveum and Lords of the Fallen being built in the engine.
- This move to Unreal Engine 5 for Iron Man could hint at EA potentially moving away from Frostbite in the future, and fans can expect a few years before more details about the game are revealed.
EA has revealed that its upcoming Iron Man game will be developed using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5. Iron Man will be the third full game coming from EA Motive since its inception in 2015. The studio first assisted DICE and Criterion Games with Star Wars: Battlefront 2 before releasing its first solo title, Star Wars: Squadrons, in 2020. Most recently, Motive's Dead Space remake released earlier this year to critical acclaim and is considered by many to be one of the best games of 2023.
Unreal Engine 5 has become one of the most widely used tools for many third-party, and even some first-party, development studios. Before its release, Epic Games partnered with PlayStation and Xbox's Gears of War studio The Coalition to create a number of impressive tech demos, including The Coalition's The Matrix Awakens, which released in late 2021. This year has seen some big games that have been built in the engine finally see the light of day. Immortals of Aveum, Fort Solis, and the freshly released Soulslike Lords of the Fallen are some of the very first Unreal Engine 5 titles to be released. Looking ahead, there are several high-profile Unreal 5 titles on the horizon, such as Black Myth: Wukong, Stalker 2, Ark 2, the Silent Hill 2 remake, and Xbox's Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 among many others.
Now, one more high-flying title can be added to the list of Unreal Engine 5 projects in development. In a blog post update from EA Motive, General Manager Patrick Klaus confirmed that the studio's upcoming Iron Man game will indeed be developed using Unreal Engine 5. Motive's Star Wars: Squadrons and Dead Space remake were both made using EA's in-house Frostbite engine; Iron Man will mark Motive's first title developed with external tech. Klaus also added that Iron Man is still early on in pre-production, which makes sense considering Dead Space launched just nine months ago.
EA's Frostbite engine has been regularly criticized in the past for causing issues for many EA titles like Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem, even being partially responsible for the closure of Visceral Games in 2017. While Motive has been able to find success with using Frostbite for Star Wars: Squadrons and Dead Space, moving to Unreal 5 for Iron Man is likely the right move. Perhaps Motive will be able to carry over its experience working on Dead Space's zero gravity sections over from Frostbite into Unreal 5 as part of Iron Man's all-important aerial movement.
It'll be interesting to see if Motive's move to Unreal 5 is hinting toward EA fully moving away from Frostbite at some point in the future, or perhaps using it only for its annual EA Sports franchises. Since Unreal Engine 5 is currently one of the most impressive looking game engines in the hands of developers at the moment, fans of Marvel's flying tech genius are sure to be excited to learn about this shift. Though, considering that Iron Man is still in early pre-production, it'll be a few years before fans will be able to see and learn more.
Iron Man is currently in development.
Source: EA Motive