Ex-Bethesda Devs Release Unreal Engine 5 For Its Legacy Scrolls Successor

If you know your way around a PC, you'll know that Unreal Engine 5 is getting an unwanted reputation. We've seen several high profile games launch in a less than acceptable state recently, with Silent Hill f, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Oblivion Remastered, Mafia: The Old Country and more recent examples. Unreal Engine 5 has not been confirmed as the cause, as Clair Obscur developer Sandfall also used the engine, but many lay the blame at its feet.

As a result, Unreal Engine 5 has been talked about more negatively than positively in recent months, and now an indie studio is deciding to completely drop the engine in favor of making its own.

That developer is OnceLost Games, a group of ex-Bethesda developers currently working on an Elder Scrolls successor called The Wayward Realms. In a post on the studio's official Twitter account (thanks PCGamesN), it announced that it would be moving away from Unreal Engine 5 in favor of its own, which will be a fork of an existing engine called Wicked. It's not an engine that's been built from the ground up, but the transition means the game won't reach its end-of-the-year goal.

While not much information was given as to exactly why OnceLost Games felt an engine switch was necessary, it did explain that this move will allow them to have “the control and flexibility needed to deliver the experience you've said you want.” It also claimed that switching to its own engine will allow them to make “a much better game” than if they were stuck with Unreal Engine 5, which isn't a ringing endorsement.

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Persona 4 Revival looks like an Unreal Engine 5 Remake, and I wish that was meant as a complement

Atlus revealed this RPG remake with the most “uh, there is, I guess” trailer I've ever seen.

It then lists some of the features this new engine will allow, such as the ability to reach over 30fps on older laptops without dedicated GPUs, and hit over 30fps on a first-gen Nintendo Switch, essentially meaning The Wayward Realms will be able to run on older hardware while looking relatively the same. It has also been claimed that modding will be much easier for people interested in that scene.

It's an interesting tactic for a game this far into development, but one that should get the Unreal Engine haters on board. At the very least, it's not a good sign that Unreal Engine 5 is being rejected by indie developers who choose to delay their own projects to make their own engines, and it will be harder for Epic to argue that it's the developers' fault rather than itself.