UnrealCraft: Developer breathes Unreal Engine 5.5 magic into Minecraft, demo available
With UnrealCraft, developer Greg Coulthard has built a system for creating voxel worlds in Unreal Engine 5.5 using blueprints. These digital landscapes consist of small, cube-shaped units, much like three-dimensional pixels. Unlike traditional 3D models that rely on polygons, voxel worlds allow for easy environmental manipulation similar to Minecraft, where players can remove, place or modify blocks freely.
UnrealCraft recreates the classic Minecraft experience within the cutting-edge Unreal Engine 5 environment. The game features procedural world generation, creating vast landscapes with diverse biomes like forests, deserts and snowy regions. Its block-building system lets players shape the world freely, much like in Minecraft. NPCs navigate realistically using NavMesh, while a dynamic weather system introduces day-night cycles and conditions like blizzards and thunderstorms. UnrealCraft also supports extensive modding, allowing users to add custom mods, skins and assets. YouTuber Bluedrake42 showcases the game in the following video:
The response to the video has been overwhelmingly positive, with many praising the game's potential and technical execution. However, some users feel the differences from modern Minecraft modpacks with shaders are minimal. If you want to try UnrealCraft yourself, a free demo is available. Coulthard recommends an RTX-capable graphics card and 16 GB RAM, though since Unreal Engine 5.5 supports AMD GPUs with Lumen and Nanite, he may simply be referring to a GPU with ray tracing support. The full version, reflecting the current development status, is available on Gumroad for $20.
Source(s)
Gumroad
Image source: YouTube / Bluedrake42
