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[Wolzard]

We want to extend a sincere thank you for the overwhelmingly positive reception to our last Devlog. Your feedback made one thing absolutely clear, this community is here because you care about deep systems, meaningful choices, and solid, uncompromised gameplay. That clarity has guided our next big step.

After reviewing the many thoughtful comments we received, we've made a major but exciting decision, we are fully transitioning away from Unreal Engine and building our own proprietary engine. This move gives us the control and flexibility needed to deliver the experience you've told us you want. Over the past few weeks, our entire focus has been on developing this new engine, and we're thrilled to say that we'll have something to show you soon, with a new Devlog showcase planned for early in the new year.

Shifting to our own engine is a major step, and while it positions us to deliver a far better game, it also means we won't be able to meet the end-of-year goal we previously set. Our new target is to release to our Kickstarter backers in June of next year, with a public Early Access release following a few months later.

We also want to remind you that we'll be hosting our Live AMA on Wednesday, December 3rd, and we invite all of you to join us and ask any questions you have about the new engine and the road ahead.

Thank you again for the trust, enthusiasm, and insight you continue to share with us. Stay tuned, big things are coming.

The new engine allows us to:

• Achieve 30+ FPS on decade-old laptops without dedicated GPUs, giving us excellent performance even on very low-end hardware.
• Run the game at nearly 30 FPS on a first-generation Nintendo Switch, ensuring smooth performance on all major consoles, with full Linux support included.
• Load Eyjar, a static map four times the size of Manhattan, in under one second, providing an almost instant start.
• Load the entire engine in roughly 300 milliseconds, which allows extremely fast iteration and has already more than doubled our development speed.
• Offer full community modding support for everything outside the core systems, using a public scripting language inspired by C# as a tribute to the Daggerfall Unity community.

Steam :: The Wayward Realms :: Transitioning Away From Unreal

We want to extend a sincere thank you for the overwhelmingly positive reception to our last Devlog. Your feedback made one thing absolutely clear, this community is here because you care about deep systems, meaningful choices, and solid, uncompromised gameplay. That clarity has guided our next...

steamcommunity.com

 

[ScHlAuChi]

Never switch engine mid production!
It will pretty much always end badly!

 

[BennyBlanco]

Never switch engine mid production!
It will pretty much always end badly!

Making a game in Unreal Engine will pretty much always end badly as well. Especially from a small studio like this.

 

[ScHlAuChi]

Making a game in Unreal Engine will pretty much always end badly as well. Especially from a small studio like this.

And you know that how? Got any concrete examples?
How many Unreal Engine projects from small studios do you know that failed becasue of the engine?
How many Unreal Engine projects have you worked on that didnt work out?
Can you even name a single studio that successfully switched engines mid production and ended up with a better game?

Let me guess, the answer to all those questions is no, cause you have no fucking clue what you are talking about!
You just hate on Unreal Engine while lacking any understanding of engines and development!
I worked on games that switched engine, and it killed them, and I also worked on Unreal Engine games with small teams, and it never ended badly.
So if you make a claim that UE is bad for indies, back it up with facts!

 

[diffusionx]

holy based

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

That's a uh…. Really bold move, but awesome. The more games that go bespoke again, the better.

 

[BennyBlanco]

And you know that how? Got any concrete examples?
How many Unreal Engine projects from small studios do you know that failed becasue of the engine?
How many Unreal Engine projects have you worked on that didnt work out?
Can you even name a single studio that successfully switched engines mid production and ended up with a better game?

Let me guess, the answer to all those questions is no, cause you have no fucking clue what you are talking about!
You just hate on Unreal Engine while lacking any understanding of engines and development!
I worked on games that switched engine, and it killed them, and I also worked on Unreal Engine games with small teams, and it never ended badly.
So if you make a claim that UE is bad for indies, back it up with facts!

I didn't realize I had to be a game dev to speak about games. UE5 has been a fucking disaster. Good luck selling your stuttering slop that looks like every other game.

 

[ScHlAuChi]

I didn't realize I had to be a game dev to speak about games. UE5 has been a fucking disaster. Good luck selling your stuttering slop that looks like every other game.

Except you didnt talk about games, you talked about engines as if you knew exactly what you are talking about!
But you know absolutely nothing and just spread misinformation because of some stupid agenda of yours - reality and facts be damned!

 

[Zathalus]

I didn't realize I had to be a game dev to speak about games. UE5 has been a fucking disaster. Good luck selling your stuttering slop that looks like every other game.

UE5 games can vary widely in presentation. Black Myth: Wukong, Marvel Rivals, Silent Hill 2, and Tekken 8 all look quite different from one another.

 

[Sentenza]

I'm not sure how it will turn out for them in particular, but as a general rule: the more proprietary engines in this industry, the better.

Constantly relying on middleware is killing technical expertise among game developers.
We need more people trying to do their own thing and coming up with new technical solutions for different challenges.

 

[howitis3]

The problem from what I can tell is that unreal engine 5 brings alot of people in because of its features. Then they discover that those features are hard to customize. So if you use them your game looks like the other unreal slop on the market and runs like shit. If you dont use it then why did you go to unreal in the first place.

 

[March Climber]

And you know that how? Got any concrete examples?
How many Unreal Engine projects from small studios do you know that failed becasue of the engine?
How many Unreal Engine projects have you worked on that didnt work out?
Can you even name a single studio that successfully switched engines mid production and ended up with a better game?

Let me guess, the answer to all those questions is no, cause you have no fucking clue what you are talking about!
You just hate on Unreal Engine while lacking any understanding of engines and development!
I worked on games that switched engine, and it killed them, and I also worked on Unreal Engine games with small teams, and it never ended badly.
So if you make a claim that UE is bad for indies, back it up with facts!

Except you didnt talk about games, you talked about engines as if you knew exactly what you are talking about!
But you know absolutely nothing and just spread misinformation because of some stupid agenda of yours - reality and facts be damned!

 

[BennyBlanco]

Except you didnt talk about games, you talked about engines as if you knew exactly what you are talking about!
But you know absolutely nothing and just spread misinformation because of some stupid agenda of yours - reality and facts be damned!

I'm talking about games Ive played using UE5. Even big releases with budgets like Oblivion are not good. And this in a 4090 PC. On consoles it's even worse. The engine stinks and has been a massive L for this generation.

 

[pudel]

If its possible to do and makes sense for the game....yeah, why not! Every game being an UE5 game cant be healthy for the industry imho.

 

[Zacfoldor]

Never switch engine mid production!
It will pretty much always end badly!

 

[mckmas8808]

Never switch engine mid production!
It will pretty much always end badly!

I can only imagine how horrible it can be to do this.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I can only imagine how horrible it can be to do this.

There's obviously lots of context missing here. For example, UE5 allows you to write good chunks of your games code in C++. If your own engine can make use of that, there you go you might have saved yourself a lot of time. On the other hand, if you're used to pipelines consisting of purely blueprint "coding" for the most part, that's a problem.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Except you didnt talk about games, you talked about engines as if you knew exactly what you are talking about!

Never switch engine mid production!
It will pretty much always end badly!

Do YOU know what you're talking about? Nothing is set in stone and changing engines has rarely ended up in a disaster unless you have concrete evidence of course. Dont yell at other users if you got shit to back it up.

 

[Bkdk]

Unreal is not a good engine for big open world games, optimization is difficult and it's harder to make extensive gameplay, quest mods. The mods can be made in unreal are usually just model swaps or slight gameplay mods, it takes the fun out of a lot of big open world games. Funny CDPR still insist on using unreal 5, people will be back playing on witcher 3 and cp2077 with mods after one single playthrough for withcer 4-6 and cp2077 sequel.

 

[ScHlAuChi]

Do YOU know what you're talking about?

Yes I do, in my 20+ years in the industry ive seen engine switches kill projects that had way more money than this indie team!
You just rarely hear about those failures as those projects get canned internally before going public.

Nothing is set in stone and changing engines has rarely ended up in a disaster unless you have concrete evidence of course.

Thats the funny part, there is not much evidence as all those projects fail and rarely ever release.
But I can give you at least one known example of an indie game failing because of an engine switch (From Unity to UE4)

An Unreal Decision

Discover the journey of switching game engines from Unity to Unreal Engine 4 for the development of Republic Sniper. Learn about the challenges, benefits, and insights gained from this transition, along with progress updates and insights into UE4's features.

martiancraft.com

It also depends when you switch engine, at the start of a project during pre-production it is still doable, but if you do it later it is just a crazy risk.

Dont yell at other users if you got shit to back it up.

Talk to anyone working in the industry, they will tell you the exact same thing I do!
If you dont like that opinion then put me on ignore!

 

[The Cockatrice]

Yes I do, in my 20+ years in the industry ive seen engine switches kill projects that had way more money than this indie team!
You just rarely hear about those failures as those projects get canned internally before going public.

Thats the funny part, there is not much evidence as all those projects fail and rarely ever release.
But I can give you at least one known example of an indie game failing because of an engine switch (From Unity to UE4)

An Unreal Decision

Discover the journey of switching game engines from Unity to Unreal Engine 4 for the development of Republic Sniper. Learn about the challenges, benefits, and insights gained from this transition, along with progress updates and insights into UE4's features.

martiancraft.com

It also depends when you switch engine, at the start of a project during pre-production it is still doable, but if you do it later it is just a crazy risk.

Talk to anyone working in the industry, they will tell you the exact same thing I do!
If you dont like that opinion then put me on ignore!

So you have basically nothing. System Shock remake switched engines and ended up being fantastic.

 

[ScHlAuChi]

I'm talking about games Ive played using UE5. Even big releases with budgets like Oblivion are not good. And this in a 4090 PC. On consoles it's even worse. The engine stinks and has been a massive L for this generation.

There, you even admit it yourself, you just played a few UE5 AAA games, and that narrow view suddenly makes you an expert in gamedev and engines?
What if I told you there is a ton of UE5 VR indie games running at 90fps in 4000x2040 on a base PS5?
How is that possible when the engine is so terrible? Oh right, you didnt play those, so those dont count!
But hey, dont let facts stop you, have fun with your crusade!

 

[ScHlAuChi]

So you have basically nothing. System Shock remake switched engines and ended up being fantastic.

There is a small difference - they didnt switch mid production!
And no, I wont shut up, put me on ignore if you dont like my truth!

 

[cireza]

Congratulations on making your own purpose-built engine.

You will know exactly how it works because you built it.
You are getting rid of many layers of abstraction and will have much greater control and understanding on what works, what doesn't, and why. And then, know better how to fix it.
You are getting rid of a ton of middleware and features that are entirely useless to your game, yet tank the performance.
You will know more easily how it can evolve to satisfy your future needs.
And yes, you will have to maintain it and ensure compatibility in the future yourself.

It is thanks to purpose built engines that games like DoA5/6 had instant loading of stages with an amazing picture quality, while Tekken games of the same years looked like low-res trash on consoles and had neverending loading times.