Insights from the Development Team
“Reclaim the future. Rewrite the past. Reforj the world,” proclaims the Reforj social media account, setting the tone for what players can expect. Joseph Garrett, better known as Stampy, a prominent Minecraft YouTuber who joined 4J earlier this year, weighed in on the inevitable comparisons to Minecraft. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, he stated, “We’ve already had articles about 4J making Minecraft 2. But that’s not what we’re trying to do. Despite all of us being huge fans of Minecraft, we don’t need to make another one. It already exists.”
Chris van der Kuyl, founder and chairman of 4J, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that Reforj will deliver a “very different gameplay experience” compared to Minecraft. “That doesn’t mean they will stop playing the games they love every day. They will. We still have a marketplace in Minecraft. This is just something brand new for people who love the genre, and we don’t think they’ve had anything new for quite a long time,” he remarked.
The Elements Engine
Reforj is being developed using the Elements Engine, a proprietary voxel sandbox engine created by 4J. The studio showcased the engine on YouTube earlier this year, highlighting its potential to leverage the capabilities of the latest generation of consoles and graphics cards. Van der Kuyl shared insights into the engine’s development, stating, “We started on the Elements Engine about five years ago. The obvious question is that Unity and Unreal have taken over the market, so why do this? Well, we love creative sandbox gaming.”
He continued, “We realized that nobody had really thought about features that you’d want to be accelerated by next-gen that would benefit sandbox gaming. Of course, we want nice graphics and shiny water. But there were opportunities around using GPU acceleration for something different.”
Garrett further elaborated on the engine’s focus on efficiency, noting that it is designed to optimize world saves. “It is this big sandbox world, but it doesn’t save the world; it just saves the changes you made to the world, so it means that the world saves are really small and can load really efficiently,” he explained. “We have gateways in the world where you can travel to other worlds and create new ones, and it all links seamlessly.”
Looking Ahead
As of now, Reforj remains in the pre-alpha stage of development, and no release date has been announced. Players eager for updates can follow the team’s progress through their social media channels.
Meanwhile, Minecraft continues to capture attention, particularly with the recent release of a live-action movie trailer that has left fans buzzing with excitement.
