First-person automation factory builder Satisfactory will be upgrading to Unreal Engine 5, from its current Unreal Engine 4, in the upcoming major update: Update 8.
Previously, developers Coffee Stain Studios teased that a teaser for Update 8 is coming, but was delayed.
Satisfactory will be upgrading to Unreal Engine 5.1.1 (the 5.2 version, which was recently announced, isn’t live just yet) and the devs have outlined some of the new features to expect with this, which includes the following:
- Optional global illumination (utilising Lumen)
- Game won’t be designed to fully be lit with global illumination, but it will be available as an option
- Nanite utilisation for rocks and cliffs
- Reduced stutters thanks to utilising World Partition System instead of the current tile/chunk loading
- TSR (temporal super resolution) anti-aliasing – similar to Nvidia DLSS/ AMD FSR
- Vehicle physics changed to Chaos physics system- expected improved vehicle controls
- Trucks are heavier
- Explorers are zippier, easy to oversteer
- Tractors (Sugarcubes) are faster
- Factory carts are less prone to flipping over
- Janky bumping/bouncing while driving over flat foundations should be gone
- Handbrakes improved
- Won’t affect most automated self-driving routes
- Air control improved
- No change to trains
- Improved vehicle audio
The engine change will first roll out to the Experimental path, and this will be proper experimental. Players should back up their save files in case of the experimental build isn’t working and revert back to the main Early Access branch.
The update won’t necessarily provide better performance per se, but the features included with the UE5 upgrade will have some benefits to the player, and many more for the developers still working on this Early Access game, launched first in 2019.
As a result, the minimum system requirements will be raised for Satisfactory. The minimum GPU, previously an Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 (which now has no driver support) will be bumped to the GeForce GTX 1650. An SSD may be required due to UE5 Nanite relies on fast writing speeds, but these are not set in stone just yet. Likely once Update 8 is revealed in full we’ll see how much the minimum specs have been bumped.
The full video, with a perfectly cursed thumbnail of an engine block with the head of Epic Games head Tim Sweeny mounted to the front going super saiyan, is worth a watch for those looking for more details on why Satisfactory is making the engine change.
Satisfactory is out now in Early Access for PC (Steam, Epic Games Store). The upcoming Update 8 has no release window yet. The current Update 7 is now live.