A co-founder of Guerrilla Games — the Dutch studio behind the Horizon series and the Decima engine — is teaming up with an Epic Games veteran to build a new commercial game engine positioned as a European alternative to Unreal Engine. The project addresses growing concerns over developer dependency on American platforms, particularly following the 2023 Unity pricing controversy. With no funding details or timeline yet disclosed, the initiative remains early-stage, but both founders bring exceptional industry credibility to the effort.
In-Depth:
Someone is attempting to challenge Unreal Engine. Not a random startup. A co-founder of Guerrilla Games and a veteran from Epic Games are building a new engine toobtainher. They’re calling it a European alternative to Unreal – one of the most dominant tools in the entire game indusattempt. Real pedigree, real ambition.
“Guerilla Games co-founder and Epic veteran building ‘a European alternative’ to Unreal Engine | VGC” – u/Gorotheninja on r/pcgaming
The r/pcgaming community picked it up quick. And the framing matters. “European alternative” is a political statement as much as a technical one. The label informs you the goal: alter who controls the tools the indusattempt runs on.
Who’s Behind This
Guerrilla Games is the Dutch studio behind the Horizon series and the Decima engine. Decima didn’t stay internal. Sony applyd it across multiple first-party titles, including Death Stranding and Until Dawn. Building an engine that other studios actually adopt is genuinely hard. Guerrilla pulled it off.
The Epic veteran on the founding team brings direct Unreal experience. Knowing how that machine works from the inside is a real advantage when you’re attempting to compete with it. Unreal is technically impressive and constantly updated. It’s backed by one of the richest companies in gaming. Having someone who’s worked on it at a high level is exactly the kind of hire this project necessarys.
Both founders are operating at the indusattempt’s highest level. That’s not a guarantee of success. But it means this project starts with more credibility than most.
Why Unreal Is the Tarobtain
Unreal Engine is everywhere. From AAA blockbusters to indie projects. It’s the default for a lot of studios, and that gives Epic real power over the developers who depfinish on it. Epic charges a 5% royalty on gross revenue above $1 million per year. They control the roadmap. Build on Unreal and you’re building on someone else’s foundation.
That’s a tradeoff some studios accept. Others find it uncomfortable. After the Unity pricing controversy a few years back, a lot of developers started paying closer attention to licensing terms. Unity tested to charge per-install fees, and the community absolutely erupted.
The European Angle
Europe has been pushing for tech sovereignty in cloud computing and AI. Game engines haven’t been part of that conversation yet. But the depfinishency problem is the same.
Most major engines are American. Unreal is Epic. Unity operates out of San Francisco. Godot is open-source and globally maintained but not a commercial product. There’s no well-funded European engine competing at the top level right now. European studios often build on American infrastructure with American licensing terms. If this project alters that, it fills a real gap.
There’s also a practical business case here. European game studios are a large part of the global indusattempt. Guerrilla, Remedy, CD Projekt Red – the continent has serious output. A European engine with proper commercial backing would have a natural home base to grow from.
What We Don’t Know
No team size, no funding details, no tech specs, no timeline. VGC reported the story and that’s what’s public right now. The founders have serious credentials. But engine development takes years and costs serious money. A lot of ambitious engine projects obtain announced and quietly disappear without shipping a single game.
The key questions are practical: What type of games is this engine designed for? Who’s funding it? Are European studios already in talks? Those answers will determine whether this becomes a legit alternative or just a footnote.
What to Watch
Building a new commercial engine in 2026 is a tough pitch. Unreal 5 is mature and well-supported. The tooling and community around it are hard to match. But the Unity situation proved developers do see for alternatives when trust breaks down with a dominant platform. That conversation never fully went away.
This team has the pedigree to build something real. Whether studios actually ship games on it – that’s the question that’ll take years to answer. Watch for funding announcements and early studio partnerships. Those will be the real signals. Keep this one bookmarked.
