Grim Dawn FAQ - Compilation of Dev Feedback

[eisprinzessin]

Technical stuff

Past, present and future of the GD engine

The Past

@medierra

Starting with the TQ engine, we have everything, in terms of programming, we need to make a game with all the gameplay, features and UI of TQ. Then it’s just a question of what we want to improve, add or remove.

@medierra

Another major factor is that we didn’t just get the engine, we got the entire code base, which saved a massive amount of time / money because we didn’t have to recreate an entire ARPG gameplay, feature set and tools from scratch.

TQ = Titan Quest (the game medierra had worked on at Iron Lore Entertainment before he founded Crate Entertainment)

The Present

@medierra

On the engine side, we recently rewrote the renderer from scratch and previously replaced the physics engine, pathing engine, shader model, sound engine, added post effects, etc. The only thing really limiting us from replacing all of the engine components over time is that it has to support the art we’ve already created and we’re sort of obligated to support older versions of directX because we supported them with the initial release and people running older systems wouldn’t be able to play if we didn’t.

@Zantai

what do you think most modern engines are? They’re just iterations of engines created many years ago. Grim Dawn’s engine is for all intents and purposes a new engine at this point with all of the tech changes we had made to modernize it.

@medierra

the date an engine was originally created is sort of irrelevant since you can continually update it and eventually replace every part of it.

The Future: License a commercial engine or develop our own?

@medierra

Another issue is that a lot of what people interpret as being the look of the engine is actually the look of the art itself and how it was made. We started working on GD 8 years ago now and expectations for the size of texture resolutions and triangles on models was lower than they are today. A lot of what has improved with the look of the game over the years is just us updating art / redoing textures.

The thing that might have the biggest visual impact now would be to redo lighting and the way materials are rendered but that isn’t really feasible unless we move on to GD2 and leave all this current art behind. If we go on to GD2 and no longer have to support older DX version or existing art, then we’d be free to make bigger updates to the engine.

@medierra

On that topic, someone mentioned going to Unreal, which would certainly almost guarantee great graphics… however, ARPGs require some special consideration when it comes to engine architecture and Unreal is not natively designed for that type of performance. The tools are also not great for an ARPG. We’d have to do some engine work and a lot of tool work and after that, we’d be starting from scratch in terms of ARPG combat / features.

Source: Steam Discussions - Date: May 25, 2020

@medierra

If you’re making an ARPG, you’re not starting with much besides and engine and then you have to sift through or even try to rework existing code that is irrelevant to your game or not suited for it. Even the way levels are made in Unreal is not great for the way we wanted to build GD, so we’d either have to figure out how to work with it or create a new level editor and terrain system.

We’d still have to do a bunch of work before we could even click on the ground and make a character run around in an isometric view. Then you need to add loot mechanics, player inventory, skills, a skill system, combat mechanics and formulas… basically all the things that make an ARPG.

@medierra

Part of what has kept up from making major graphics updates to GD is that we are burdened with having to support the specs we put out years ago, for older directX versions and operating systems. We can’t just update the game in a way that will break it for existing users who have to play on older machines. A jump to a sequel though gives us an opportunity to start fresh, cut support for older shader models and directX versions, hardware specs, and allow us to greatly modernize the engine. If you scrap the renderer and start over there, it’s not like the age of whatever you keep matters - it’s basically like a new engine. Beyond the engine component, we have an entire ARPG codebase we can then use, which cuts out a ton of work. Even if we go in a direction drastically different from GD, there are a lot of fundamentals to ARPG gameplay that take time to program and get working just right. It would be easier and lower risk to start from a point of being able to say “what do we want to change, cut, add” to an existing codebase.

Source: Steam Discussions - Date: May 25, 2020

@medierra

Our current thinking is that Unreal probably doesn’t make sense for GD. We’re using Unreal for another project but also are currently working on new generation of the GD engine.

Source: Grim Dawn - Crate Entertainment is Hiring for new projects... | Facebook - Date: Dec 9, 2020

@Zantai

We’re developing a new proprietary game engine which our future games will be built on, including our RTS. Grim Dawn 2 is not in development and will not be until we at least have that foundation.

@Zantai

We are not overhauling the Grim Dawn engine. That old workhorse has done its duty and is rightfully retiring.