From Unigine to Project Offset

Unigine Heaven BenchmarkWith all this engine talk up in the air recently, Richard and I thought to sample Unigine’s demo benchmarks. You might already know Unigine from its association with Afterfall, the on-again off-again post-apocalyptic RPG – most other titles using the platform were admittedly unfamiliar to us.

In any case, while waltzing through their newest DirectX 11 -supporting “Heaven Benchmark”, I was struck by massive déjà vu: I could have sworn I’d seen a project of this type some years before – one that had been riding a considerable wave of hype, indie credibility and a touch of megalomania no less.

I’d completely and conveniently forgotten its name, though, and nobody seemed to remember what I was talking about.

After spending considerable time booting up and patching my Swiss cheese of a brain – enough to get some Google on – I was able to pin down my hunch: Project Offset! Can you think of a less demarcating, less descriptive codename for a fantasy project? How is one supposed to go about searching for that, exactly? Gawrsh! Naming conventions aside, the most relevant question obviously is:

What’s happened ‘tween 2007 and 2009?

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