Rocket League trailer previews Unreal Engine 6 upgrade, but don’t expect it any time soon
The Unreal Engine has powered decades of video games, with Unreal Engine 6 just around the corner. The first game to get it, according to Epic, will be the company’s own Rocket League. Or, at the very least, it’s the first game to demo the new tech.
The demonstration isn’t terribly long, and there’s no further detail about what UE 6 will bring to the table, but the brief seconds of gameplay are pretty enough. There are new lighting systems and particle physics on display, but these are incredibly brief. Epic also hasn’t shared much about what gamers will need to bring Rocket League and (presumably) other new UE 6 titles to life on their systems.
Currently. Unreal Engine 5 games have a… less-than-impressive reputation. There are good games, sure, but plenty of others are unoptimised experiences. There’s also a roster of UE 5 games to come before we see something from Epic’s newest tech. It’s almost certain that games like Rocket League and Fortnite will be the first to launch. How quickly third parties adopt the engine remains to be seen. Still, it’s pretty.
China’s Manned Space Agency merges its lunar programs with a close eye on the Moon
The next closest frontier for human exploration is the Moon. NASA’s Artemis program is rumbling along, even if the goal posts shift from time to time. China doesn’t want to be at the back of the queue this time, either. The country’s Manned Space Agency has just announced a merger of its crewed and uncrewed programs. The reason? “[T]o fully leverage the technical foundations and practical experience accumulated over decades through crewed space programmes and the Chang’e lunar exploration missions,” according to agency spokesman Zhang Jingbo.
It’s hoped that the merger of the two exploration arms will help the country meet its target of a manned lunar landing by 2030. “When Chinese astronauts land on the moon in the future, this will be a great feat for all of humanity. It will help increase our understanding of space,” said the spokesman.
The target is ambitious for any country. Even so, China will be a little behind the US — assuming everyone’s timelines stay static. NASA plans to put human boots on lunar soil by 2028. The China Manned Space Agency has an answer for that, too: “We carry out the project of crewed lunar exploration under the established plan. We are not competing with other countries in space. Our crewed lunar programme is also not subject to interference from any factors.”
So much for the leak: Forza Horizon 6 reportedly nearing 5 million copies sold
Forza Horizon 6 was recently the subject of a massive leak — the entire game, in fact — recently. Something like that would crush many games, but Microsoft’s racing juggernaut has barely slowed. Reports indicate that, across Steam and the Xbox ecosystem, the open-world racing game is approaching 5 million copies sold. Those are impressive numbers for any game, but considering that Horizon 6 fully launched on 19 May, they’re even more eyebrow-lifting.
Some of the game’s response is clearly astroturfed online (check out the many videos praising the title on various social platforms), but much of it is down to the strength of the series. Forza Horizon 6‘s choice to set the game in Japan, the care taken with the visual presentation, and Horizon‘s typically fun get-in-and-go gameplay were always going to be a winning combination. Fast cars and accessible gameplay are always going to see an impressive gamer response.
Even the game’s criticisms — cheating AI (Need for Speed is the gold standard for rubber-banding), a storyline that… really could be better (written and voiced), and PC stability issues — aren’t really stopping players from jumping into Microsoft’s newest sandbox.
Masters of the Universe‘s final trailer blends old and new (but keeps Prince Adam’s pink shirt)
The 1980s are back (again), bringing with it an updated version of Prince Adam of Eternia and his alter-ego, He-Man. The family-friendly Conan/Bruce Wayne composite’s newest live-action movie has one final trailer out, and it’s packed with details that folks who saw the original He-Man cartoon will recognise.
It’s also got a more modernised take on the whole story, while sticking in all of the things that shifted merchandise off shelves for Mattel for a generation. Prince Adam, played by Nicholas Galitzine (who is almost a clone of Taylor Kitsch‘s John Carter in the film by the same name), is the exiled prince of Eternia who returns home to reclaim his lands from Skeletor (Jared Leto, who’s not actually wearing makeup — that’s just his face now). You know the drill, if you’ve been around for the last 40 years.
For everyone else, there’s dialogue seemingly written for Chris Pratt’s Star-Lord, what looks like plenty of authentic (yet updated) action sequences, and surprisingly true-to-the-original visual presentation in terms of character design. Even Prince Adam’s pink shirt doesn’t look out of place. It comes from modern-day Earth, instead of being part of the bumbling prince’s disguise when he’s not swinging a sword around, but it’s there. In Barbie pink, because Mattel doesn’t miss a chance to cross-promote.
Masters of the Universe comes out on 5 June. It looks to have a few facepalm-worthy moments, but it might also be fun.
