Stories
Anvil's hidden forks: Blacksmith, Silex and Ubisoft's engine family
Ubisoft's Anvil engine had forks: Blacksmith for Rainbow Six Siege and For Honor, Silex for Ghost Recon. What Ubisoft said at REAC 2025, and why it merged them.
Stories
How studios built their engines, why they moved off them, and where genre names came from.
StoriesFrom a Japanese film to PUBG: where battle royale came from
Where did battle royale games come from? Takami's novel, Fukasaku's film, Minecraft Hunger Games, PlayerUnknown's mods, PUBG, Fortnite and the lawsuit.
StoriesDecima: how Guerrilla gave Kojima its engine on a stick
Why does Death Stranding run on Decima? How Guerrilla handed Hideo Kojima its engine's source code before any contract, named it after Dejima, and what came next.
StoriesGamebryo to Creation Engine: the engine behind Bethesda's games
Is Bethesda still using Gamebryo? How Morrowind's engine became Skyrim's Creation Engine, then Creation Engine 2 and 3, and what Todd Howard says about it.
StoriesBattleborn, Overwatch and the name “hero shooter”
Where did the term hero shooter come from? 2K's 2014 Battleborn pitch, Overwatch three weeks later, Team Fortress 2's role, and Concord and Marvel Rivals.
StoriesRollback netcode explained, and why fighting games switched
Rollback netcode explained: why delay-based online play feels laggy, how GGPO guesses and rewinds, and how Guilty Gear Strive, SF6 and Tekken 8 switched.
StoriesWho coined “metroidvania”? A Usenet joke, a lost forum and a word nobody loved
Who coined metroidvania? A 2001 Usenet joke, 1UP's Jeremy Parish denying it, Koji Igarashi calling the word handy, and the critics who want it gone.
StoriesWhy 4X is called 4X: a joke rating in a 1993 magazine
Why is it called 4X? Alan Emrich's 1993 Master of Orion preview in Computer Gaming World rated it XXXX: explore, expand, exploit, exterminate.
StoriesWhy CD Projekt Red left REDengine for Unreal Engine 5
Why did CD Projekt Red switch to Unreal Engine 5? The Matrix demo, the 2022 Epic deal, what Cyberpunk had to do with it, and The Witcher 4 on stage.
StoriesMetro, 4A Games and Dmitry Glukhovsky: a Kyiv studio, a Russian author and a war
How Kyiv's 4A Games built Metro on its own engine, why it calls author Dmitry Glukhovsky a friend, and how studio and author stood against Russia's war on Ukraine.
StoriesDoes Call of Duty still use the Quake engine? The family tree of id's code
Does Call of Duty still run on the Quake engine? How id's Quake code became Valve's GoldSrc and Source and Infinity Ward's IW engine, in the developers' words.
StoriesS.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: the game GSC Game World finished through a war
How Kyiv's GSC Game World made S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl through Russia's invasion: Unreal Engine 5, the move to Prague, developers at the front, launch and patches.