The AnandTech Forums thread “Discussion – Wicked Engine – Your thoughts, resident game developers?” is a conversation, not a professional review or a verdict on whether the engine is ready for production. Started April 14, 2024, it contains a few personal reactions and a longer list of technical questions that the discussion does not answer. It is useful as a snapshot of what prospective users were weighing—not as a representative survey of game developers.
What the discussion was about
The opening post shared a feature-story description of Wicked Engine as a small, fast, experimental, open-source C++ 3D engine with a modern renderer. It highlighted updates described in that feature: a reworked FPS sample, voxel-based 3D pathfinding, line-of-sight occlusion testing, and screen-space global illumination (SSGI). Those are claims relayed in the forum post, not independent benchmarks or findings from the thread. Read the April 14, 2024 AnandTech thread.
How forum members reacted
One reader was weighing it against Godot
A member who said they were learning Godot wondered when they might choose Wicked Engine over other options. The thread does not develop that into a comparison of workflow, capability, or performance.
One commenter questioned its fit for work
Another participant called Wicked Engine “a fun toy and a cool personal project” and said they would not consider it for their work. They criticized the pathfinding demos as rough, arguing that grid-based pathfinding may not scale well in large open areas and that navmeshes are a typical alternative. The commenter also said they had not inspected the source code to see whether optimizations might change that assessment. This is one person’s reaction to demos, not a tested evaluation of the implementation.
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The same commenter described their studio’s Unreal choice
Later, that participant said their current project used Unreal Engine 5: “We’re on Unreal 5- it’s certainly not a perfect engine and has plenty of issues, but it’s a decent option all things considered.” That account is personal context, not evidence that Unreal is universally preferable or that the studio assessed Wicked Engine for its project.
Questions the thread raised but did not resolve
The original poster asked what professional developers thought and raised questions about graphics technology, hardware, platform support, studio work, and engine choice. The thread did not provide substantive answers to these:
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- How hardware ray tracing compares with software ray tracing and Lumen.
- Whether pre-baked lighting might become obsolete in medium-to-large studios.
- How long 8 GB of VRAM might remain acceptable for 1080p gaming.
- Whether Unreal Engine 5’s TSR could replace support for FSR, DLSS, and XeSS.
- What developing for Mac involves.
- What studio programmers work on beyond core engine and tools development.
- How to plan for a vendor changing engine terms, and what migration to another engine might cost.
- Whether a game can be designed to be engine-agnostic.
A later reply called the questions vague and said some needed more context. They are best read as prompts for investigation, not answers supplied by the discussion.
What Wicked Engine’s official materials say
The project’s GitHub repository describes Wicked Engine as an open-source 3D engine intended for use as a C++ framework for graphics projects, a standalone 3D editor, Lua scripting, or learning. Its current README lists Windows, Linux, Mac OS, iOS, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. It names DirectX 12 as the default renderer on Windows, Vulkan on Linux, and Metal on Apple systems. These are repository statements; they do not establish identical feature parity or support maturity on every platform. The repository identifies an MIT license, but anyone planning to use the engine should consult the actual license file.
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For distribution, the official downloads page describes Steam releases with auto-updates and development builds distributed through GitHub artifacts. Check the project’s current pages for availability and details.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to assess it for a real project
The forum exchange does not establish whether Wicked Engine is suitable for a particular game. A useful evaluation should start with the project’s concrete requirements rather than reactions to a demo.
- Platforms and graphics APIs: Confirm that the required target platforms and renderer paths are supported for the specific build and workflow you need.
- Editor and content workflow: Try the standalone editor and the asset pipeline with representative project content.
- Programming model: Decide whether the C++ framework, Lua scripting, or combination fits the team’s skills and desired control.
- Workload performance: Profile a representative scene on the intended hardware. The thread supplies no independent performance measurements.
- Navigation at the required scale: Test the pathfinding approach against the actual world size, density, and runtime needs; a forum impression of sample demos cannot substitute for that test.
- Documentation and examples: Check whether the samples and project materials answer the implementation questions your team encounters.
- Long-term maintenance: Account for the engine-specific systems you would need to maintain, port, or replace if project needs or vendor terms changed.
These are evaluation criteria suggested by the questions in the thread and the project’s described setup; they are not measured strengths or weaknesses of Wicked Engine.
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