The word Esenthel is made by combining two words i.e. Essential and Essence. It is an open source game engine for developing commercial and noncommercial games (it is not Free, there are some limitations, i.e. its code cannot be used to create/improve other game engines.). It is written in C++ and is very easy to use. It uses very clean APIs. It is in development since 2000.
CryEngine powered Far Cry, Crysis, Hunt: Showdown, and Kingdom Come II. Every version, every game, and where Crytek’s engine really stands today.
The Dunia Engine powered the Far Cry series for over a decade. Here’s its history as a CryEngine fork, the games built with it, its standout features, and whether you can download it.
Brian Barnes’s dim3 was an Apple staff pick and one of the friendliest ways to build a 3D game on a Mac. Here’s what it did, why development stopped after 2014, and what its creator builds now.
Delta3D is an open-source multi-platform game development engine. Written in C++, the engine is available to users under the license of LGPL (Lesser General Public License). Community-supported, Delta3D is widely prevalent among developers around the globe. The engine is used for multipurpose including training, education, visualization, and of course entertainment.
Dark Engine gave Thief its shadows and System Shock 2 its scares. How Looking Glass built gaming’s smartest AI in 1998 — and why it still runs today.
The Creation Engine is Bethesda Game Studios’ proprietary C++ engine behind Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 76 and Starfield — a Gamebryo fork rewritten almost beyond recognition over fifteen years. Here’s the verified version history, the newly announced Creation Engine 3 powering The Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5, and why Bethesda keeps saying no to Unreal.
Cafu is an open-source C++ 3D engine with Lua scripting and a full editor, MIT-licensed since 2016. Here’s what’s in it, what’s been built with it, and the best alternatives.
Paradox’s Clausewitz engine has powered grand strategy games since 2007. Here’s its version history, how the Jomini layer fits in, every game built with it, and its key features.
ClanLib is a long-running open-source C++ toolkit for 2D games. Here’s what ClanLib 4.2 includes, how it changed from version 3, a working example and the alternatives.
Is C++ still relevant in 2026? TIOBE ranks it #3, C++26 shipped reflection and contracts, and games, browsers and finance still run on it. The data.
Bork3D was a commercial C++ engine from two-person studio Bork 3D LLC, powering early iPhone and iPad games before being open-sourced in full — engine, game and art — in 2015. Here’s its verified history, the games actually built on it, and why the dormant codebase is still worth reading.
