In a significant development for the highly-anticipated fantasy RPG, The Wayward Realms, developer OnceLost Games announced a major shift in its development strategy. The studio will discontinue use of the Unreal Engine in favor of a proprietary, in-house engine, a move prompted by community feedback and aimed at bolstering the gameS performance and adaptability. While the change promises optimized performance-including potential support for older hardware and impressive load times-it also pushes the game’s release window to a June 2026 Kickstarter backer release.
OnceLost Games is significantly altering its approach to the development of its upcoming fantasy role-playing game, The Wayward Realms. The studio announced in a recent Steam blog post that it will abandon Unreal Engine in favor of its own proprietary technology. This shift, the company says, is intended to increase flexibility and “allow us to deliver a better game.”
The decision follows recent feedback from fans regarding the project, and OnceLost Games believes the change will lead to overall improvements.
According to the studio, the in-house engine will enable the game to run at 30+ FPS on a decade-old laptop without a dedicated GPU, and even maintain the same frame rate on the original Nintendo Switch. This suggests console support will not be an issue. Furthermore, the team highlighted a map “four times the size of Manhattan” with load times of under one second, and near-instant startup – the entire engine loads in 300 milliseconds (“already more than doubled our development speed”). The engine also offers full community mod support.
While the news is promising, this substantial change means the game is now behind schedule. Kickstarter backers will receive access in June 2026, followed by a public early access period in the months after. More game updates are expected starting December 3rd.
