The Heathen Engine

Bethesda took a base of Gamebryo engine and forged the Creation Engine to give their RPGs a distinct, unmistakable “feel,” we have adopted Open 3D Engine (O3DE) as our core internal framework.

A AAA-grade environment that sits in the “Goldilocks Zone” of development, more polished than a bare-bones framework, yet far more extensible and less “opinionated” than the proprietary boxes of Unity, Unreal, etc.

Architecture as Identity #

Unity and Unreal are designed to be “Out-of-the-Box” solutions. They work brilliantly as long as you stay within their intended workflows. However, for a tools-heavy studio, the deeper you go, the more you find yourself fighting the engine’s core assumptions.

O3DE is different. It is an EC-centric (Entity Component) platform that simply loads Gems. This modularity allows us to perform an “Architectural Takeover”:

The Philosophy #

The bridge between high-performance engineering and creative design is often where game development slows down. We solve this through O3DE Reflection. Every tool we build, from our FOSS based Foundations to our Pro Toolkits is fully reflected in the engine and script accessible.

  • For the C++ Engineer: Our tools are written in raw, optimised C/C++. You get a refined, memory-efficient foundation that doesn’t hide logic behind opaque layers.
  • For the Designer (Low/No-Code): Because our systems are reflected, they are instantly available in Script Canvas (visual scripting) and Lua. You get AAA-level performance through a designer-friendly interface without touching a compiler.

Tools, Editors and Asset Processors #

Heathen’s Toolkits go beyond the foundation tools we make available via Apache 2.0 for $15 you get a site based license to every asset we have built for every engine we work with including full source. Our Toolkits for O3DE provide rich robust tools for hobbyist to engineer. Thousands of developers and published hundreds of commercial games built on top of decades of Heathen technology.

The Heathen Engine #

Foundations & Toolkits #

We are building a layered ecosystem on top of O3DE to remove the friction from high-end development while retaining total flexibility.

The Open Foundations (FOSS) #

These are our low-level contributions to the community, providing the bedrock for advanced game systems:

  • xxHash:
    The foundation of many of our tools, xxHash gives us a deterministic multiplatform highly performant hashing solution.
  • GameplayTags:
    The cornerstone of our larger systems, GameplayTags are xxHashed hierarchy aware tags that can optionally store a value. Gameplay Tags can be used to define inventory systems, localisation keys, ability systems, stats and progress systems and much more.
  • Lexicon Localisation:
    A deep narrative and localisation suite that handles persistent state and multi-language assets natively.
  • Ogham Storyteller:
    Built with Lexicon and GameplayTags in mind the Ogham Storyteller lets you author Dialogue Entries with fully localised text, tag operations on entry and tag based IDs. Coupled with Dialogue Entry Options which again fully support localised text, tag operations and tag conditions. This combination enables authors to define the fundamental logic that brings a story to life with zero code.
  • DataLens (Coming Soon):
    A cache-aware simulation layer and world-database capable of handling complex AI behaviours rivalling systems like Radiant AI or The Sims.
  • Foundaiton for Steamworks:
    A modular, clean SDK wrapper for the Steam ecosystem.

The Professional Toolkits #

Collections of robust production ready tools built on our foundations, designed to take a project from “Framework” to “Feature-Complete”:

Available as part of GitHub Sponsor and Patreon programs

  • DataLens Toolkit (Coming Soon):
    simulation system and game database systems enabling massive real time emergent simulation systems.
  • Lexicon Localisation Toolkit (Coming Soon):
    Connect our Lexicon Localisation foundation to translation services and LLMs to help you localise your culture lexicons.
  • Ogham Storyteller Toolkit:
    Seamlessly integrates narrative logic with external tools like Twine into our Ogham Storyteller.
  • Gameplay Abilities (Goming Soon):
    A robust, designer-friendly system for building complex combat and interaction mechanics using our Gameplay Tag system.
  • Toolkit for Steamworks:
    Robust platform specific engine aware tools that accelerate your development and greatly simplify and stabilise your Steam integration.

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