When it comes right down to it, just about anyone can make a video game if they’re willing to put the time and effort into it. That might sound presumptuous, but it’s true. There are multiple tools out there for small teams to come together to make an indie title, even if they don’t have lots of experience. Or, if you’re someone like Fun Dog Studios, who has an experienced lineup of people who have worked for Sony and beyond, they can use their experience with the available tools and make something epic like The Forever Winter. We interviewed them recently, and there was one key piece of information that shined out above the rest.
In the interview, the team noted that the reason they were able to do all that they wanted with the game was because of the power and versatility of Unreal Engine 5:
“We wanted to take our experience working on incredible games like Horizon, Killzone, Hawken, and dozens more and apply it to new IPs. The Forever Winter represents a lot of what we felt it might be impossible for us to work on inside a AAA studio, and having the freedom of going independent means we get to prototype these wild ideas and mechanics to really make the game different, exciting, and worth playing. This wouldn’t be possible without the democratization of technology like Unreal Engine 5. That engine is absolutely key – it allows us to quickly stand up and iterate through the course of development. These new tools mean it’s more possible than ever to make a AAA-style game without the backing of a “true” AAA studio.”
That’s impressive on all sorts of levels. First off, it shows that indie crews have plenty of resources and big engines that can power their games, and it highlights how you don’t need to have the biggest of budgets to facilitate your gaming ideas. While it’s true we don’t know how the game will be when it arrives, Unreal Engine 5 is no joke, and this game could be something special.
This piece of news might also be something that many latch onto in the wake of the recent significant issues with Sony and Microsoft. Many people have stepped forward, like Moon Studios, to talk about how they would “never again” be owned, and recent events reinforced that.
So, with this engine at the disposal of indie dev teams, one can only wonder what they decide to create next.
