Wait, is UE5 having that "hitscan" shooting engine where the projectiles don't actually have to travel & hit the target, so the graphics are just there for effect ? I've seen that in so many games it's sickening, it reduces auto-fire to useless & NPCs to walking steel.

It does if the developers program it to do that, otherwise no. It's not a "UE5" thing, or any other engine for that matter. That's not how engines work. In any case, the original Doom had some hitscan weapons, and I don't recall auto-fire being "useless" or NPCs being "walking steel".

If the developer chooses hitscan, it will be hitscan. If not then not. It's nothing new, and definitely not an exclusive to any engine.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with hitscan per se. Yes, it can be terrible, but as everything, the game can be balanced around that. On the contrary, I'd say that modern day aversion to giving any enemies anything even remotely resembling hitscan is needlessly taking away from the FPS genre. It's been there since the very first FPS games. The current obsession with "everything must be dodgable at all times" honestly sucks.

No clue what auto fire or "walking steel" NPCs is supposed to mean.

I'm just gonna leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMoY0nW6Ouk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Bv8fQ0sK8

Yes. Many of the all-time FPS classics had hitscan weapons, and they played great.

One way to make hitscan work just fine is to not make enemies perfectly accurate. Add some sort of random dispersion to their aim, so they won't automatically hit the player every time.

I meant you fire on auto a spread covering 3-5 feet, NPC slow walks that spread and doesn't get hit once.

In that case, it might be an operator (aim) issue. As it is much more likely one will dodge a ballistical projectile instead of a hitscan check (which one does not dodge at all, but gets missed by instead).

Either way, both have their gameplay merits. But for some reason, hitscan is scoffed at by nearly everybody these days (if given to enemies, nobody complains if the player has it). I guess it's another case of something getting parroted often enough that it becomes the universal truth.

I have not seen a good shooting engine since Delta Force 6. Same for FPS military games.