Understanding Input Actions and Contexts

Player input is the thing that distinguishes video games from other forms of entertainment media – the fact that they’re interactive. For a video game to be interactive, it must take into account a player’s input. Many games do this by allowing the player to control a virtual character that acts upon the virtual world it’s in, depending on the keys and buttons that the player presses, which is exactly what we’ll be doing in this chapter.

Note

It’s important to note that UE5 has two input systems – the Legacy Input System, used since the start of UE4, and the new Enhanced Input System, introduced only in the last version of UE5 as an experimental system and now as a complete plugin in UE5. We will be using the new Enhanced Input System in this book. If you wish to know more about UE5’s Legacy Input System, you can do so by accessing this link: https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en...