Unreal Engine is perhaps the most well-known game dev tool on the planet, and some footage has emerged of its first ever tech demo.
Those who are perhaps a little older will likely remember a time when gaming was a simpler affair. At the time, studios were much smaller, budgets were less, and development cycles were shorter, all of which meant it wasn’t the behemoth industry that’s enjoyed today. Over the years, there have been many incredible advances in video game technology, both software and hardware, and the likes of Unreal Engine is one example of tech that has helped to move things forward significantly. Of course, Epic Games’ engine had to start somewhere.
In a recent video, YouTuber Cycu1 managed to boot up an old rendition of Unreal Engine on their much more contemporary PC. Specifically, the footage shows a playable tech demo of the first-ever iteration of the engine from 1995. This means the demo predates even the first Unreal game from 1998, which the software was originally built to create.
The video shows the player wandering around a dark interior, which seems to be some sort of castle. Looking at it through modern eyes, it’s clear that the graphics have now become dated. But at the time, it was an impressive engine, with even id Software’s John Carmack complimenting it. With Unreal Engine 5 having recently been launched, many can see just how far the technology has advanced over the decades. Even the original version was improved upon between the demo and when it was used to create Unreal, which came out three years later.
The YouTuber says that they did have some trouble getting it to run on Windows 11 and had to run it using Windows XP compatibility mode. Even with an Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card, the video seems to have some framerate issues, most likely because Unreal Engine was not future-proofed for PC hardware three decades later. Cycu1 even said that this footage was captured after numerous crashes.
Unreal Engine is one of the most popular engines in video game development currently, used in the creation of many AAA and indie titles, as well as some fan remakes. With upcoming titles like Redfall, STALKER 2, and the new Witcher game using it, the games industry on the whole is continuing to put Epic’s long-running software to use. Development really has come a long way over what some would consider a relatively short period of time, and the video Cycu1 has uploaded really shows the evolution.
