Former Bethesda Devs Switch To Their Own Engine For Daggerfall-Inspired Game
OnceLost Games is leaving Unreal Engine 5 behind.
First announced in 2021, The Wayward Realms is an open-world fantasy RPG directed by Ted Peterson and the late Julian LeFay, who were lead developers on the original The Elder Scrolls games, Arena and Daggerfall. Until now, the spiritual successor to these classic titles was being developed in Unreal Engine 5. However, a recent announcement from the team revealed that they are fully moving away from it to create their own proprietary engine.
"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."
Reportedly, the new engine enables the game to achieve over 30 FPS on decade-old laptops without dedicated GPUs, run at nearly 30 FPS on a first-generation Nintendo Switch, with full Linux support included. It can also load Eyjar, a static map four times the size of Manhattan, in under one second, providing an almost instant start.
The entire engine itself loads in roughly 300 milliseconds, allowing for extremely fast iteration that has already more than doubled the team's development speed. Additionally, it offers 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".
Although Epic Games' engine is known for performance issues and its specific "Unreal Engine 5 look", it has become a key tool for both major studios and indie developers. We'll have to wait and see what the OnceLost Games team is working on, and if you're curious, you can join them live on December 3 at 8 PM EST for an AMA.
Also, check out 80 Level's new digital art courses, subscribe to our Newsletter, and join our 80 Level Talent platform, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, and Instagram, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.
