GoldSrc: The Half-Life Engine’s History, Games and Legacy
The engine behind Half-Life and Counter-Strike: where the GoldSrc name came from, what Valve built on top of Quake, which games really used it, and its status in 2026.
Game Development Tutorials — Game Engines Explained, from Unreal and id Tech to Open-Source C++
Every game runs on an engine: the renderer, physics, audio, scripting and tools that turn code and assets into something playable. Studios have built their own engines to push their games forward, and those engines have shaped whole genres. The early first-person shooter grew out of id Tech, grand strategy runs on Clausewitz, and open-world action games run on Anvil. If you know how engines work, you understand how games are made.
MYCPLUS has covered game development since 2004, and this section is built around in-depth game engine profiles. They cover the in-house engines of the biggest studios, the open-source C++ engines you can download and build today, and the classic and discontinued engines that came before them. Each profile covers how the engine works, the version history, a checked list of the games built on it, and where it stands in 2026, including what to use when an engine is no longer available.
Alongside the profiles you’ll find guides to choosing an engine and a language, graphics programming with DirectX, and complete C++ game projects with tested source code. Whether you’re picking a toolset for your first game, studying engine source code or researching the technology behind a game you love, start here.
What You’ll Learn
- Choosing an engine and a language — a directory of 100+ C++ game engines and the games made with them, the best programming languages for game development, and practical guides to Unreal Engine, Unity 6 and Cocos2d
- The engines behind AAA games — id Tech, CryEngine, Frostbite, Anvil, Snowdrop, REDengine, Creation Engine and MT Framework: how studios build their own engines, and why some are moving to Unreal
- Engine family trees — how GoldSrc grew out of Quake and led to Source and Source 2, how the IW Engine began as id Tech 3, and how Dunia branched from CryEngine
- Open-source engines you can build — Torque 3D, OGRE and OGRE-Next, Panda3D, Pyrogenesis and Aleph One, plus which repository to use for each and how to build it
- Classic and discontinued engines — Looking Glass’s Dark Engine, SSI’s Gold Box, UDK, ShiVa and Marmalade: what made them important, and what to use instead today
- Graphics programming and C++ game code — DirectX from DirectDraw to Direct3D 12 explained in tested C code, and complete playable projects such as a C++ car race game
Why MYCPLUS: One of the web’s largest collections of game engine profiles, maintained since 2004. Every profile checks its game list against named sources, corrects the myths copied elsewhere, and states each engine’s status in 2026. For the language behind most of these engines, see the C++ Programming tutorials.
DirectX Components Explained: From DirectDraw to Direct3D 12
A history of DirectX from Windows 95 to DirectX 12 Ultimate, with pixel formats, palettes, pitch and double buffering explained in tested C code.
qfusion: the Quake II Fork Behind Warsow, and Where Its Code Went
qfusion no longer means one repository — it means three, and they have diverged. Here’s the upstream, Warsow’s fork and Warfork’s, when each was last touched, and which one to build from.
Jade Engine: the Ubisoft Engine Behind Beyond Good & Evil and the Sands of Time
Ubisoft Montpellier built Jade for one game and named it after its heroine. It ended up carrying the Prince of Persia reboot. Here’s every game verified on it — and why the Beyond Good & Evil sequel isn’t one.
MT Framework: Capcom’s Engine Before RE Engine — and the Games It Still Ships
Capcom turned down Unreal and built its own engine instead. Here’s every MT Framework version and what ran on it, why RE Engine replaced it, and why it was still shipping games in 2025.
4A Engine: the Metro Engine That Dropped the Rasteriser
In 2021, 4A Games removed the rasterised lighting path from Metro Exodus entirely — every light is ray traced, with no fallback. Here’s the engine behind the Metro series, and why you can’t download it.
Chrome Engine: Techland’s Game Engine Behind Dying Light — and What Replaced It
Techland’s engine, not Google’s browser. Chrome Engine 6 powered Dying Light in 2015 — but Dying Light 2 runs on something else entirely. Here’s the version-by-version map and what Techland builds on today.
OGRE and OGRE-Next: the Rendering Engine That Isn’t a Game Engine
OGRE draws things. Physics, audio and gameplay are your problem — which is exactly why it shows up inside other people’s engines and in robotics. Here’s the OGRE 1.x versus OGRE-Next split, and which to pick.
ShiVa Game Engine: End of Support, and Where ShiVa Developers Go Next
ShiVa put 3D games on the iPhone before most people thought it was practical. In March 2023 its makers stopped selling it and stopped fixing it. Here’s the status, and the migration path its own team recommended.
Banshee 3D Game Engine: What It Became, and Why Its Repository Is Gone
The Banshee Engine repository is a dead link, so the project looks abandoned. It isn’t — it renamed twice, dropped its editor, and shipped commits this month as B3D Framework.
Unreal Development Kit (UDK): the Free AAA Engine That Changed Indie Games
Fifty thousand people downloaded UDK in its first week. Five years later Epic gave away something better and killed it. Here’s what UDK actually was, the $99-and-25% deal behind it, and what to do with an old project.
Source vs Source 2: What Valve’s Engines Run Today, and What You Can Actually Use
Two engines, one confusing name. Source is source-available and non-commercial; Source 2 is proprietary and has never been released. Here’s what each one runs, and exactly what Valve lets you build.