A dramatic shift has been announced: instead of relying on Unreal Engine 5, the developers are embracing a fully custom-built graphics engine that performs so efficiently it can run their upcoming open-world RPG even on laptops without a dedicated graphics card. With Ted Peterson and Julian LeFay leading OnceLost Games, The Wayward Realms is heading in a radically new technical direction.
Unreal Engine 5 has proven to be both impressive and intimidating. Although Epic Games originally presented it five years ago as the future of hyper-realistic game development, the engine has struggled with overwhelming technical challenges. Severe FPS drops, unpredictable performance, and optimization issues have pushed many developers to view it as a potential obstacle to the industry’s future. Even so, major studios like CD Projekt continue to rely on it for projects such as The Witcher 4. But one team has chosen a different path: OnceLost Games is abandoning Unreal Engine 5 for its new title, The Wayward Realms, in favor of its own internal engine.
You might not have heard much about The Wayward Realms, and that makes sense – since its initial reveal back in 2024, information has been scarce. Yet its pedigree is remarkable: Ted Peterson and Julian LeFay, both industry legends and central figures in the early development of The Elder Scrolls, are spearheading the project. With its enormous scale, procedural generation, and clear inspiration from Daggerfall, the RPG’s ambition alone warrants serious attention.
The long period of silence turned into an opportunity for the developers to reassess one critical question: was Unreal Engine 5 truly the right choice? According to the studio, the answer became a definitive “no.” Despite the risks, the high cost of transitioning, and the complexity of shifting assets between engines, OnceLost Games concluded that building upon their own technology was the only way to achieve complete control over the game’s performance, depth, and design. Their Steam announcement confirms that this move has already exceeded their expectations.
The shift away from Unreal Engine 5 is already paying off
Although switching to a custom engine will delay the game’s launch, it unlocks substantial benefits. The team reports that the game now runs at over 30 FPS even on older laptops lacking a dedicated GPU, and that it will also operate on the first-generation Nintendo Switch, all while offering full Linux support. Loading times have also seen a dramatic improvement: Eyjar, the game’s massive map – four times the size of Manhattan – loads in under a second, while the engine itself initializes in just 300 milliseconds, significantly accelerating both development and iteration.
Another major highlight is the expanded modding capability. The developers explain that players will be able to modify nearly every aspect of the experience except for the core systems, using a scripting language inspired by C# – a deliberate nod to the Daggerfall Unity modding community. Kickstarter backers will receive early access next June, with a public release planned only a few months afterwards.
To provide more insight, OnceLost Games has scheduled a live Q&A session for December 3rd, where they will discuss the new engine, design decisions, and long-term plans. This bold change once again raises doubts about Unreal Engine 5’s push for industry dominance and suggests that alternative paths may prove far more sustainable for ambitious RPGs.
Source: 3djuegos
