Epic Games is a giant in the video games industry, and it wears many hats. Not only does the company own Fortnite, it also runs the Epic Games Store, which promises more exclusives than ever over the next two years.
While these sources of wealth have their own controversies, one thing that almost everyone loves about Epic Games is its contribution to game creation: the Unreal Engine. Unreal is a simple (for what it is) but powerful game creating tool, and has been utilized for a huge variety of projects. Now Epic is releasing new software that can further enhance Unreal creations: a simple, powerful character creator.
The creator, dubbed MetaHuman, is supposedly very simple and very powerful, approachable by people of any skill level when it comes to virtual, 3D character creation. The tool provides multiple options for character creation from a pre-programmed set of parameters. Said options will look familiar to anyone who has used a sophisticated character creator within a video game before, although there are more options offered beyond these, including facial reconstruction that is not bound to a slider. Combined with the community oriented features supposedly coming for the Epic Games Store, Epic is definitely putting more ease of use in players' hands.
This would prove a huge feather in the hat of Unreal Engine and Epic if it is indeed as sophisticated as advertised. As mentioned above, the Unreal Engine and its iterations have frequently proven to be boons to both newcomers and professionals when it comes to making games. In fact, BioWare discussed moving Mass Effect: Legendary Edition to the Unreal Engine for a while before ultimately deciding not to. The user cost and other attached strings of MetaHuman, if any, are not known as of this article.
The first iteration of MetaHuman will be geared towards more photorealistic humans, although not completely photorealistic. According to its creators, outlandish creations or more cartoony characters will be difficult to make. Players may be able to recreate Pokemon towns in Unreal, but they won't be able to do the characters justice, even with MetaHuman.
However, that's only with this first version of MetaHuman. According to Epic, the system will be expanded upon in the future. With all of it available through a browser, with final creations available for download, players may soon finish creating the Shire in Unreal, complete with perfect hobbits. This could be a brand new source of power put directly into the hands of players who want to become creators.