Tower Unite should work on porting the game to Unreal 5

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The discussion on porting to UE5
I’ve seen a post back in 2021 about asking if TU will port to Unreal 5 and most the comments were saying how it would break stuff and cause a lot of problems, that isn’t wrong as usually when porting to the new version it causes a lot of problems, specially if you tried to port a game from something like Source to Source 2, but Unreal 5 was stated that porting a game project from UE4 to 5 would be smooth, of course it won’t be a simple button click and boom it’s all there with no broken stuff, there of course will be some things broken, but that is just game dev, it’s the same with making stuff, you make 1 thing and it breaks 10 other things, I would understand more if it was porting to a whole new engine or UE5 wasn’t made to port UE4 games, but TU as much as a pain it would be, at some point should probably port to UE5 as it will help them a lot and do a lot for the game.

How UE5 would benefit Tower Unite
Right now as it is, TU is a game that is designed to run on low end PC’s with the high end graphics only making things look a tad bit nicer, the game doesn’t fully utilise what the Engine can do which makes sense when you set yourself restrictions so other people can play, Unreal 5 has got some stuff that can help and a game like TU needs, for example Nanite, the technology that UE5 added where you can render high end poly count models but with less strain on your system, with a system like that it would allow the devs to give more breathing space for themselves and the fans that upload workshop items, they can increase the poly cap on player models as well as making sure low end devices don’t suffer, it’s one of the great things to see with things like Unreal 5 is them finding ways to make things look more pretty and graphically enhanced with less strain on peoples hardware. TU needs a few other things, things I stated on other voting posts like better rigs, jiggle bones and the ability to add more bones to models, stuff I know UE4 can handle but UE5 will handle it better well keeping it accessible for low end specs.

Pulling the band aid off quickly
Something like this would be a pain and working on unfinished projects and doing a games design course I know how nightmarish working with an engine can be, let alone when stuff breaks or you need to go back over old code, but it’s one of those things where pulling the band aid off quickly and getting it over and done with, would be the best option, if not that then either when the game is about to leave Early access or if the devs plan to do a massive rehaul of the game, they should do it then, I wouldn’t expect the change anytime soon even if the devs planned to do it but it would be something they should look in to doing, even if to try it. I don’t expect the devs to do this but it’s one of those bite the bullet and get over and done with, with a smooth ending, or stick to the old way and ride along the bumpy road, either way I hope to see TU prosper and improve on a lot of where it needs improving on.

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Upgrading to Unreal 5 is not a simple process, unfortunately. It’ll be a ton of work at this stage. Even doing just an UE4 version upgrade takes a month or two of work as lots of things break and change in the engine versions in ways that we cannot anticipate. Upgrading to Unreal 5 would be great though, but it would take a long time and halt development on anything else.

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Considering your answer to Goblin here, could this upgrade still be considered for the future or is it out of question, at least for the time being or permanently? It’s a little hard to properly interpret what is being implied by your answer, as it is a little bit vague on whether this could be considered or not. Even if the game were to stay on UE4 though, I’m personally not really against it, I’m merely just curious about this, as much as the thread creator is.

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It wouldn’t be something we would do in the immediate future. I was vague because one day we could upgrade to Unreal 5, but it would be an incredible task that we’d need to block out time for, which currently we cannot afford to as we have many projects ongoing that would be affected by it. If we decided to start the upgrade process, players wouldn’t see an update from Tower for several months.

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I don’t know if I put it in my post but with an upgrade like that it would be something you would see in a massive update, I wouldn’t expect it to be done with in a day nor a week, it would be something that would be expected either when leaving Early access or if they game ever has a massive major update. From my experience with the engine it’s a nightmare to work with despite the nice tools it has to help make game dev easier then most engines, but if it was something you and the team decide to do It would need a large notice to the community. Best option I could think of is to lay your cards out on the table (not now of course) but at some point you could ask the community if they would want the upgrade but also tell them that it will take a lot of time and there will be a huge gap of no updates, that way if the community agrees then it saves the team the problem of the fans wondering whats going on and getting upset.

The other thing would be again doing it when TU hits that good point where your please with the content and think it’s enough to hold the fans over well you work on it.

I wish I knew a bit more about how UE worked, I don’t know if you can still work on adding content to the current update well also working on the upgrade, to me that seems impossible since any new content being made during the time of the upgrade will also need to be added, adding more work to the upgrade, I know some games do it but they are huge companies which is different from a small indie team. Either way it would be great to see in the future, and it’s a shame it isn’t really simple as TU would benefit massively from it but if it doesn’t happen then thats how it is,

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