AAA Games That use Unreal 4

Dragonball FighterZ (Arc System Works)

Dragonball FighterZ is a fighting game based on the DragonballZ anime. Despite the at a glance 2D appearance of the game it actually uses 3D models with the use of advanced shaders to recreate the anime look of the show. The models on their own look fairly bland with a few black lines present in the texture work being the only thing stopping the model from looking completely flat. However, in game with the cell shading and other shaders enabled the models really spring to life with dark shadows accentuating the look of the characters as well as the shader drawing the important black outlines around the edge of the character. The scope of the game means that the developers at Arc System Works had more control of how things are presented. Being a single plane fighter, the developers didn’t need to worry about the lighting interacting strangely with the shaders as the camera is almost always in the same Y axis. That being said the adherence to the look of the show is so strong that the lighting and shading of the characters don’t follow normal logic with shadows appearing uneven as it attempts to replicate the quirks of the shading of the show that were potentially caused by budget or time restraints. There are some instances where the camera does move around more which likely meant that the developers would have to manually tune the values and such in order to retain consistency.

The game runs at a locked 60FPS to keep the experience consistent allowing players to remember and act upon the timings of moves consistently. However, the frame rate of the animations is lower, once again attempting to recreate the show as faithfully as possible.

Octopath Traveller

Octopath Traveller combines 2D and 3D elements to combine the style of a classic JRPG with modern techniques to create a unique visual style. The game places 2D pixel art sprites in a 3D environment with the texturework of the assets also adhering to the pixel art style. The geometry of these 3D assets is simplistic in order to suit the pixel art style, creating an interesting paper craft cardboard cut-out quality to the presentation of the world. That’s not to say the material work fully replicates traditional pixel art with specular maps being used on some materials such as cathedral tiles as well as water using modern shaders to provide a more natural look. Items such as flags appear to be animated by hand due to their deceptive texture work but actually use the cloth material modifier that’s effected by wind. Foliage such as trees use the material-based grass wind modifier.

The game also makes great use of elaborate particles and depth of field effects blurring out the background environment that is made possible by the 3D presentation which also allows proper 3D lighting with light shafts enabled and certain objects such as lamps illuminating the scene. The combat encounters despite appearing flatter than the presentation of the overworld still take place on a 3D plane, allowing the camera to shift and rotate ever so slightly during combat such as when trying to accentuate the impact of a special attack.