Messiah Engine is an in-house

game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...

developed by

NetEase NetEase, Inc. () is a Chinese Internet technology company founded by Ding Lei in June 1997. It provides online services with content, community, communications, and commerce. The company develops and operates online PC and mobile games, adverti ...

. It supports multiple platforms including

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

, Android, and PC, with a focus on mobile games.

History

Development of Messiah Engine began in 2007. It was first introduced in 2010, with its first game released in 2013. Zhao Yukun, head of the engine's development, said he was inspired by

Edwin Catmull Edwin Earl Catmull (born March 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist and animator who served as the co-founder of Pixar and the President of Walt Disney Animation Studios. He has been honored for his contributions to 3D computer graphics, ...

, who developed the Stochastic Sampling algorithm initially used by

Pixar RenderMan Pixar RenderMan (also known as RenderMan) is a photorealistic 3D rendering software produced by Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar uses RenderMan to render their in-house 3D animated movie productions and it is also available as a commercial product ...

. The first demo was shown to NetEase founder

Ding Lei Ding Lei (; born October 1, 1971; also known as William Ding) is a Chinese billionaire businessman, and the founder and CEO of NetEase. He has made significant contributions to the development of computer networks in mainland China. In late 201 ...

on an iPad mini 2. The engine now supports multiple platforms: iOS, macOS, Android, PC, PS4/PS5, Switch, and Xbox. NetEase demonstrated the engine at

E3 2016 The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2016 (E3 2016) was the 22nd E3, during which hardware manufacturers and software developers and publishers from the video game industry presented new and upcoming products to attendees, primarily retailers and m ...

along with its game ''Tianxia''. It has received more than 20 patents. As of July 2021, the engine has been used to develop 9 games, including ''

Diablo Immortal ''Diablo Immortal'' is a free-to-play, Massively multiplayer online game, massively multiplayer online Action role-playing game, action role-playing video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase. A mobile game in the Diablo (series ...

'' and '' Where Winds Meet'', as well as many mobile games such as ''Knives Out'', ''Eternal Arena'', ''A Dream of Jianghu'', ''The Legend of Glory'', and '' Ace Racer''.

Features

A major focus of Messiah Engine is efficiently taking advantage of multiple processors. Besides general rendering, physics, and UI threads, Messiah Engine attempts to break down jobs even further into "execution slices," with a queue to manage task dependencies. To support multiple platforms, Messiah Engine uses a hardware abstraction layer composed of three layers: algorithm, translation, and device driver. The engine supports

physically based rendering Physically based rendering (PBR) is a computer graphics approach that seeks to render images in a way that models the lights and surfaces with optics in the real world. It is often referred to as "Physically Based Lighting" or "Physically Based ...

and real time

global illumination Global illumination (GI), or indirect illumination, is a group of algorithms used in 3D computer graphics that are meant to add more realistic lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aest ...

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{cite web , last1=Krajewski , first1=Brandon , title=Tian Xia: The Next Generation 3D MMORPG Mobile Game , url=https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/24/tian-xia-the-next-generation-3d-mmorpg-mobile-game , website=IGN , language=en , date=24 June 2016 {{cite web , last1=Maria , first1=Alex Santa , title=Diablo Immortal Detailed by Developer NetEase , url=https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/453207-diablo-immortal-detail-netease , website=GameRevolution , date=5 November 2018 {{cite web , author1=紫薇说游戏 , title=网易自研引擎首席专家：每半年一次系统重构，这8年我们是怎么过的？ , url=https://game.xiaomi.com/viewpoint/1401739964_1652427139950_100 , website=小米游戏中心 , publisher=游戏葡萄 , language=zh , date=2022-05-13 {{cite web , author1=钟经文 , title=网易游戏：深耕156年研发引擎自主打造国产技术“底座” , url=https://tech.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202211/01/WS6360d847a310817f312f3fa6.html , website=tech.chinadaily.com.cn , publisher=国际在线 , date=2022-11-01 {{cite web , last1=Sholtz , first1=Matthew , title=Interview: Diablo Immortal lead designer Wyatt Cheng details what's next for the hotly-anticipated MMO , url=https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/02/24/interview-diablo-immortal-lead-designer-wyatt-cheng-details-whats-next-for-the-hotly-anticipated-mmo/ , website=Android Police , language=en , date=24 February 2021 {{cite web , author1=浮梦万物皆虚 , title=《燕云十六声》PC公测开启：4K高清画面欣赏 _ 游民星空 GamerSky.com , url=https://www.gamersky.com/news/202412/1864718.shtml , website=gamersky.com , date=2024-12-27 {{cite web , title=《格罗里亚传奇》制作人：Messiah引擎业内顶尖_九游iOS专区 , url=https://ios.9game.cn/news/1045757.html , website=ios.9game.cn , date=2016-07-30 {{cite web , author1=cinderboy , title=Tianxia - NetEase looking to mobile MMORPG for global expansion , url=https://mmoculture.com/2016/06/tianxia-netease-looking-to-mobile-mmorpg-for-global-expansion/ , website=MMO Culture , date=17 June 2016 {{cite web , title=网易自研游戏引擎Messiah开发，《天下》手游将参展美国E3 , url=https://www.sohu.com/a/82632082_204728 , website=sohu.com , publisher=游戏陀螺 , date=2016-06-12 Video game engines NetEase games Proprietary software