[patates]

So this was the secret deal which, according to rumors, saved Crytek. This is the second fork of the CryEngine that I know of (other is the Farcry fork of Ubisoft), and I find it interesting that they keep forking it instead of offering a library designed to work with it. I wonder if it says something about the codebase.

[wlesieutre]

Another major engine fork is for Star Citizen / Squadron 42.

They've hired several ex-Crytek engineers at the Foundry 42 office in Frankfurt, and among other changes have modified the engine to support a 64 bit data in coordinate system and rendering, multithreaded physics, and independent physics grids for inside the larger ships while they're moving around. Probably other things, but those are the main ones.

[wlesieutre]

This sort of thing is actually pretty common in games; you end up doing some engine customization to fit your needs, and eventually you have to say "We've diverged too far to try and keep following the main updates anymore," and you stick with a customized version of an old release.

Nearly every AAA game is going to fit into that pattern, it's just that the 64 bit coordinates overhaul in Star Citizen is probably a larger and lower level architectural change than what most things bother with.

[sangnoir]

> I wonder if it says something about the codebase.

Well, this is Amazon we are talking about - they like dancing to the beat of their own drum. They also forked Android.

[Slippery_John]

Well, the meaty bits that make Amazon money are all separated out into a service called GameLift and the C++ SDK.