A New Era for Pro Cycling Manager with Unreal Engine
Hello everyone!
For this first dev blog on Pro Cycling Manager 25, we want to talk to you about our new engine. To do so, we first invite you to read the one for Tour de France 2025, where the genesis of this evolution is detailed.
As you’ve understood, with our new engine, we’re not just talking about short-term changes but about a new era made possible by pooling technologies and production tools with TDF.
For years, although there were synergies, discussions, and some shared elements between our two games, the technical aspects remained completely separate. This limited the potential for evolution.
A simple example: for the same building in both games, once the raw asset was produced, we had to perform the technical work twice, followed by as many verifications and corrections, because the technologies were different. Apply this constraint to tens of thousands of elements, and you’ll easily understand the benefits of unifying the technology.
We were also held back by certain evolutions that were too costly to develop twice in different ways. Now, they are becoming feasible for the future of the series.
The two games will not be strictly identical, and even the technology unification is not yet fully completed. It’s a gradual evolution that must happen in stages, like a Grand Tour.
Just like the recent Paris-Nice, unexpected events sometimes made our task more complicated, forcing us to redraw our initially planned course. But in the end, as with the arrival on the Promenade des Anglais, the blue sky returned.
Speaking of Paris-Nice, and not just for its nickname "the race to the sun," but rather for the capricious weather it offered riders in 2025, rainy conditions are a first clearly visible improvement in PCM 25. The rendering has been significantly enhanced in this regard.
Sunny conditions and the overall scene rendering have also been greatly improved, with much more detailed distant terrain rendering. This allows for better distinction of mountains, such as Mont Ventoux, which is visible from afar, fully justifying its nickname as the "Giant of Provence."
With the old engine, the potential of multi-core processors was barely utilized. Having a high-end configuration did not provide better graphics or improved game performance.
However, Unreal Engine 5 now allows us to fully leverage high-end configurations while opening the door to future evolutions in the coming years.
We can already hear some of the hardcore players in the back of the room saying, "Yeah, but visuals don’t matter; what’s important is the gameplay, career mode, and AI…"
And they’re not entirely wrong—those aspects are the core of the game. But for the series to continue existing and evolving in all areas, it needs visuals that do justice to the beauty and richness of this sport. It was about time!
Rest assured, the work on the engine has neither slowed down nor prevented improvements in other aspects of the game. We’ll talk about that very soon!
>> https://linktr.ee/cyclinggames <<
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2511310/Pro_Cycling_Manager_25/
For this first dev blog on Pro Cycling Manager 25, we want to talk to you about our new engine. To do so, we first invite you to read the one for Tour de France 2025, where the genesis of this evolution is detailed.
As you’ve understood, with our new engine, we’re not just talking about short-term changes but about a new era made possible by pooling technologies and production tools with TDF.
For years, although there were synergies, discussions, and some shared elements between our two games, the technical aspects remained completely separate. This limited the potential for evolution.
A simple example: for the same building in both games, once the raw asset was produced, we had to perform the technical work twice, followed by as many verifications and corrections, because the technologies were different. Apply this constraint to tens of thousands of elements, and you’ll easily understand the benefits of unifying the technology.
We were also held back by certain evolutions that were too costly to develop twice in different ways. Now, they are becoming feasible for the future of the series.
The two games will not be strictly identical, and even the technology unification is not yet fully completed. It’s a gradual evolution that must happen in stages, like a Grand Tour.
Just like the recent Paris-Nice, unexpected events sometimes made our task more complicated, forcing us to redraw our initially planned course. But in the end, as with the arrival on the Promenade des Anglais, the blue sky returned.
Speaking of Paris-Nice, and not just for its nickname "the race to the sun," but rather for the capricious weather it offered riders in 2025, rainy conditions are a first clearly visible improvement in PCM 25. The rendering has been significantly enhanced in this regard.
Sunny conditions and the overall scene rendering have also been greatly improved, with much more detailed distant terrain rendering. This allows for better distinction of mountains, such as Mont Ventoux, which is visible from afar, fully justifying its nickname as the "Giant of Provence."
With the old engine, the potential of multi-core processors was barely utilized. Having a high-end configuration did not provide better graphics or improved game performance.
However, Unreal Engine 5 now allows us to fully leverage high-end configurations while opening the door to future evolutions in the coming years.
We can already hear some of the hardcore players in the back of the room saying, "Yeah, but visuals don’t matter; what’s important is the gameplay, career mode, and AI…"
And they’re not entirely wrong—those aspects are the core of the game. But for the series to continue existing and evolving in all areas, it needs visuals that do justice to the beauty and richness of this sport. It was about time!
Rest assured, the work on the engine has neither slowed down nor prevented improvements in other aspects of the game. We’ll talk about that very soon!
>> https://linktr.ee/cyclinggames <<
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2511310/Pro_Cycling_Manager_25/