While we’re on the way to there, why not share?

We are at a point in history where the world is undergoing massive, critical change. A public health crisis has set off a chain reaction through which the scale of systemic failure in our societies is becoming painfully apparent. It feels like we are losing more people than ever to it – in reality, it is more likely that with the widespread threat of a pandemic making us all sit up slightly straighter, many of us are simply finally beginning to notice what has been under our noses all along.

It is all we can really think about as we prepare to send this issue of Edge off to print. It has, naturally, given us cause for some serious reflection about what we can do to help, given the increasingly limited resources available to us these days. Rest assured that we know we have our own imbalances to redress – trust us when we say that any changes that may ensue in the coming months will be made with the intention of making Edge an even better magazine.

Now to the issue currently in front of you. While the videogame industry, much like the rest of the world right now, has an awful lot of work still ahead of it, this month we bring you reasons to be hopeful about the future. One of them can be found in Artists Assemble, which shines a light on just a few of the indie collectives out there in the wild, banding together to protect and support one another while carving out a place for new kinds of art, made by people who don’t fit into the many narrow constraints of other spaces in the industry.

And then there’s what’s on the cover this month. In the last few years, Epic Games has used the snowballing momentum (and capital) it’s accrued thanks to the runaway successes of Unreal Engine 4 and Fortnite largely with a view to improving the industry as a whole. We are delighted to report that Unreal Engine 5 looks to be the decisive next step in Tim Sweeney’s plan to finally dismantle what he has always described to us as the “walled gardens” of gaming. The story begins on p54.