Rooted Weekly Dev Log: Week 25, 2026

It was a slightly lighter week on the code side, because I spent part of it at Game Camp in Lille. I gave a talk on solo development with Unreal Engine 5, and it was a great time: an almost-full room, a really good exchange with Mickael Bougis from Epic Games and Romain from Derelicts, and a real pleasure to get to answer every question the audience put to me. The event announcement is here if you are curious: Rooted at Game Camp 2026.

Around the trip, the week went to the weather, the way the game feels to move and aim, the terrain and vegetation that make up the world, and how the enemies feel more alive in it. None of this is in the public build. It is all work in development.

Storms with more presence

Rooted's weather is getting more alive. I spent time this week turning storms into a real presence in the world rather than something that just fades in around you, so when the weather turns it has a place and a direction to it instead of being everywhere at once.

It is still early on the visual side and I am keeping the specifics under wraps, but the groundwork is in. Like a lot of Rooted, it is built data-driven, which is what keeps systems like this open to modding.

Sharpening the 3Cs

A good part of the week went into the 3Cs, the camera, the controls, and the character, the layer you are in contact with every second of play. Aiming picked up a more cinematic touch as you settle your sights, drawing your attention onto what you are actually pointing at.

The transitions in and out of the low stances were tightened up too, so your speed, your pose, and what the camera shows you stay in agreement when you move instead of drifting apart. This is the steady, quiet work on how the game feels to play.

The terrain and greenery the world is built on

A big piece of the open world's look came in this week: the voxel terrain and the open-world map, along with the full set of quality vegetation, ash, pines, spruce, black spruce, and a library of larger plants. It runs on Nanite and holds its shape when it is voxelized into the terrain, which is what lets the world stay dense without falling apart up close. A set of character assets came along in the same pass. This is the foundation the rest of the world gets placed onto.

Enemies that feel more alive

I kept working on making the world's enemies feel like they belong in it rather than waiting around for you. The world now decides on its own how busy a place should be and adjusts as the situation shifts, so encounters build up and ease off naturally instead of being placed by hand.

Their fighting got a little sharper as well: they read cover better before opening fire, and they let go of a target more sensibly once the moment has passed.

That's the week from the development side!

Mat