The MMO we all wanted
VanillaReborn
Built on Unreal Engine 5Unreal Engine 5.7 · temporal super resolution · our own world, lit in real time
Our own world, built on Unreal Engine 5 to feel like the 2000-2010 golden age of MMOs: modern graphics, the old feel, and everything done right. Two continents, 52 zones, six capitals, 32 dungeons and raids, ten classes. Shamans and Paladins on both factions, the Blackguard as a tenth class, battlegrounds and rated arenas, and a world that is slow, dangerous and worth crossing on foot.
The promise
Inspired by the best years of the genre. Built to feel like home.
Most projects like this one try to copy an old game. Vanilla Reborn is a new one, made by people who loved that time and wanted it done right: the scale, the pacing, the danger and the company of other players, on modern hardware with modern graphics.
So the world is big and walked on foot, the dungeons are real places with doors and rooms, the classes are complete on both factions, and the fights you pick with other players have somewhere to happen.
- The world at the old scale.
Two continents, 52 zones, six capitals, 24 dungeons and nine raids, each a real place you travel to and walk through.
- Unreal Engine 5 graphics, the old feel.
Built on Unreal Engine 5.7: a modern renderer and a dedicated server, with the pacing, weight and danger of the genre's early years. Nothing is rushed and nothing is handed to you.
- Everything done right.
Shamans and Paladins on both factions, the Blackguard as a tenth class, battlegrounds and rated arenas from the first day.
- Our own world.
Every people, place, character and ability in it is named and made by us.
Under the hood
Built on Unreal Engine 5. Yes, that one.
Vanilla Reborn runs on Unreal Engine 5.7, the engine behind the biggest games of this decade. This is not a skin over an old client: the whole world, every creature, every spell and every dungeon is built and rendered in Unreal, on the same tools the big studios ship with.
So the old scale gets a modern engine under it: the world is built in the editor the big studios use, rendered by Unreal, and kept sharp on the hardware you already own.
- Unreal Engine 5.7.
The current engine, not a skin over an old client: every zone, creature, spell and dungeon is built and rendered in Unreal.
- The editor the big studios use.
The same tools and the same pipeline, so the world can keep growing without being rebuilt from scratch.
- Temporal super resolution.
Sharp at any resolution, so the world reads clean on a laptop and on a 4K desk alike.
- A dedicated server.
The world runs on its own server, not on your machine, so what you see is what everyone else sees.
The world
Two continents. Fifty-two zones. Six seats of power.
Twenty-four dungeons, nine raids, doors and all
Every instance, with its exterior standing in the world where it belongs and its interior built room by room. Each is listed with the levels it lets in.
Raids
Playable characters
Playable Characters: 16 characters, ten ways of war.
Eight races, male and female, sixteen bodies. Each race carries its own name, its own body, its own home city and its own starting road. Each people has its own proportions and height, to the centimetre. Click a character to read more.
Farmers, marshals and kings of the green lowlands. The first road most travellers take.
The mountain folk. Stout, stubborn, and the finest smiths on either continent.
Small, quick and clever. Tinkers and thinkers who share the mountain hall.
The old forest people, tall and long-lived, keepers of the tree city on the sacred coast.
The risen dead, free-willed and bitter, who rule the pale court of the moors.
Warriors of the red mesas, bound by honour and by the warlord who holds the stronghold.
The tallest of all peoples. Horned, plains-born and slow to anger.
Hunters of the jungle isles, lean and quick, who stand beside the Vrull.
Abilities · explorer
Four hundred and forty ways to fight.
Every ability below is a row from the ability table: its cost, its cast time, its cooldown, its range and its school come straight from the game's data. Pick a class, search, sort.
| Ability | Level | Resource | Cost | Cast | Cooldown | Range | School | Duration |
|---|
Talents · build planner
Plan a build. Share the link.
Every tree below is the talent table as the game uses it: each talent sits in its row and column, with its rank count and its prerequisites read from the same table the in-game panel draws. Pick a class, spend your 51 points the way you would at level 60, and copy the link to share the build.
Known gaps
What the pictures show that we have not fixed yet.
The pictures above are the live build, warts included. Each caption names the gaps visible in it, and every gap we know of is listed here with what we think the cause is and where we are with it. If you know an easier way, write it in the box under that gap.
Progress
Built in cycles. Read on screen.
The game is built by lanes, each owning a part of the world, and every cycle ends the same way: cut, cook, deploy, certify, then read the live build before anyone says a word like "done".
- Live build
- —
- State
- —
- Next cycle
- —
- Test flight
- —
- Updated
- —
Every build that went live, newest first
What is left before the gates open
Recently landed
Playtest
Be there when the gates open.
The first playtest is closed and small. Leave an address and you will hear from us once, when there is a build worth your evening. No newsletter, no noise.
What the first testers will do
- Walk the world.
Both continents, every zone, on foot and by flight path. Tell us where the ground is wrong.
- Fight the numbers.
Trainers, talents, trap timers, curses and mounts, all against the design values. Tell us what feels off.
- Break the doors.
Every dungeon entrance, every capital interior. If you can stand where you should not, we want to know.
Donate
Keep the forge lit.
Vanilla Reborn is built without a publisher and without a paywall. Servers, storage and render time are paid for out of pocket. If this world matters to you, a contribution of any size goes straight into the build.
Every donation is acknowledged, none is required, and nothing in the game will ever be sold.
Card and PayPal are on their way. Send only the coin named on each rail, on the network named; anything else sent to these addresses cannot be recovered.