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Unreal University

This Course in a Nutshell

In this course you will learn how to create a Retro FPS like the classic DOOM or Wolfenstein games. This will guide you step by step on how you can create this type of game using Unreal Engine 5.

Course Overview

We will be coding this project using Unreal Engine 5 blueprints a powerful visual scripting system which will allow us to create this game without writing a line of code.

This course will contain multiple chapters which will cover a range of topics:

How to make multiple different weapons such as RPGS, miniguns and pistols, with weapon switching.

Read more

This Course in a Nutshell

In this course you will learn how to create a Retro FPS like the classic DOOM or Wolfenstein games. This will guide you step by step on how you can create this type of game using Unreal Engine 5.

Course Overview

We will be coding this project using Unreal Engine 5 blueprints a powerful visual scripting system which will allow us to create this game without writing a line of code.

This course will contain multiple chapters which will cover a range of topics:

How to make multiple different weapons such as RPGS, miniguns and pistols, with weapon switching.

How to create working 8 directional enemy sprites just like the classic Doom and Wolfenstein games and how to code enemy A.I using Behaviour Trees.

You will learn how to make multiple different HUD elements such as : game over screens, player HUDS, main menu and pause screens

How to create objects we can place in the world such as doors which require key cards and exploding barrels and more

What's Inside

Course Modules :

  • Introduction

  • Setting Up The First Person Character

  • Creating Weapons

  • Creating The A.I

  • Creating A Damage System

  • Making Interactable World Objects

  • Designing The Level

  • Final Touches

What Will You Learn In this Course?

At the end of the course you will have learnt how to make an Old School Retro FPS game with multiple different weapons, with different fire rates and ammo storage, how to make multiple different types of enemy A.I. How to create menu and level unlock systems and a lot more.

Enroll now

What's inside

Learning objectives

  • Learn how to create an old school retro fps like the classic doom game in unreal engine 5
  • How to make fps weapons we will go over how to create many different weapons including : pistols, miniguns, rockets launcher and more
  • How to create user interfaces we will go over how to make game over screens, player huds, main menu's and more
  • How to make actors we can place in the world like explosive barrels, sliding doors, door which require key cards , lava and more
  • How to create dynamic a.i using behaviour trees

Syllabus

Introduction
Community
Setting Up The First Person Character
Download Resources
Read more
Creating The Base Weapon
Creating The Pistol Weapon
Adding Controls To The Game
Creating An Ammo System
Creating The Player HUD
Updating The HUD With Our Ammo
Creating Weapons
Creating The Shotgun
Creating The Mini Gun
Creating The Plasma Rifle
Creating A Projectile System
Creating A Rocket Launcher
Creating The Big Friendly Gun
Weapon Fix
Creating The Fists
Creating The Chainsaw
Creating The Weapon Pick Up
Making The Weapon Pick Up Dynamic
Creating A Weapon Bob System
Creating Weapon Bob Pt 2
Final Touches On The Weapon Bob
Creating A Weapon Swapping System
Polishing The Weapon Swap
Creating A Sprinting System
Updating The Ammo Text
Creating The A.I
Creating The Enemy Blueprint
Creating The Behaviour Tree
Importing The Enemy Sprites
Explaining The Dot and Normalise Nodes
Setting Up An 8 Directional Sprite System
Enemy Rotation
Creating A Ranged Attack For The Enemy
Aborting In Behaviour Trees
Creating A Melee Attack For The Enemy
Giving The Enemy Moving Animations
Giving The Enemy Attack Animations
Pawn Sensing
Creating A Damage System
Making The Weapons Damage The Enemy
Spawning Blood Where The Enemy Is Hit
Making The Enemy Die
Giving The Player Health + Shield
Upgrading The Enemy Projectile Attack
Creating A Damage Screen
Making The Enemy Attack Rate Dynamic
Making The Enemy Alert When Shot
Setting Up The Base Enemy
Creating A Melee Enemy
Creating A Ranged Enemy
Where To Find Sprites
Making Interactable World Objects
Making A Shield Pick Up
Making A Health Pick Up
Making An Ammo Pick Up
Making An Explosive Barrel
Placing Sprites
Creating A Sliding Door With A Timeline
Creating A Key card System
Creating A Door Which Requires A Key Card
Creating A Lava Floor
Designing The Level
Tools You Can Use To Design Levels
Making The Level
Adding Textures To My Level
Placing Blueprints Around My Level
Adding Lighting To My Level
Final Touches
Adding Custom Fonts
Adding Sound Effects
Creating A Face Hud Pt 1
Creating A Face Hud Pt 2
Creating A Game Over Screen
Creating A Win Screen
Locking The Camera
Enemy Hearing
Creating A Weapon Unlock System
Fixing A Rotation Bug
Conclusion
Bonus Lecture

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Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in How To Make A Retro FPS Game In Unreal Engine 5 with these activities:
Review Trigonometry Concepts
Reinforce your understanding of trigonometry, which is essential for understanding vector math and enemy AI movement in a 3D space.
Browse courses on Trigonometry
Show steps
  • Review trigonometric functions and their relationships.
  • Practice solving problems involving angles and distances.
Review 'The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses'
Explore game design principles to enhance the level design and overall gameplay experience of your Retro FPS game.
Show steps
  • Read chapters related to level design and player experience.
  • Apply the principles to improve your game's design.
Review 'Game Programming Patterns'
Study common game programming patterns to improve the structure and maintainability of your Unreal Engine 5 project.
Show steps
  • Read chapters related to command, state, and observer patterns.
  • Identify how these patterns can be applied to the course project.
Four other activities
Expand to see all activities and additional details
Show all seven activities
Create a Resource Pack
Compile a collection of free or low-cost resources (textures, sound effects, models) that can be used to create retro FPS games.
Show steps
  • Search for free or low-cost assets online.
  • Organize the assets into a well-structured pack.
  • Document the contents of the resource pack.
Create a Devlog Series
Document your game development journey by creating a devlog series on YouTube or a blog. This will help solidify your understanding and share your knowledge with others.
Show steps
  • Record or write about your progress on the Retro FPS game.
  • Edit and publish your devlog content.
  • Share your devlog with the community.
Expand Weapon System
Extend the weapon system by adding more complex weapon behaviors, such as charge-up attacks or alternate firing modes.
Show steps
  • Design new weapon mechanics and behaviors.
  • Implement the new mechanics using Unreal Engine 5 blueprints.
  • Test and refine the weapon behaviors.
Optimize Game Performance
Analyze and optimize the game's performance to ensure smooth gameplay on a variety of hardware configurations.
Show steps
  • Profile the game to identify performance bottlenecks.
  • Implement optimization techniques, such as reducing draw calls or optimizing materials.
  • Test the game on different hardware configurations.

Career center

Learners who complete How To Make A Retro FPS Game In Unreal Engine 5 will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:
Indie Game Developer
An Indie Game Developer typically works on smaller, independent game projects, often handling multiple roles in the development process. This course helps build a foundation for Indie Game Developers interested in creating retro-style first-person shooters. By guiding you through all aspects of game development, from level design and AI to weapon creation and user interfaces, the course empowers you to create a complete game from scratch. The focus on Unreal Engine 5 blueprints makes the development process accessible even without extensive coding knowledge, which is very helpful to Indie Game Developers. The course will also teach about implementing sound effect and custom fonts.
Unreal Engine Developer
Unreal Engine Developers specialize in using the Unreal Engine to create various interactive experiences, including video games. This course helps build a foundation for Unreal Engine Developers by focusing on creating a retro first-person shooter using Unreal Engine 5. The course provides hands-on experience with blueprints, visual scripting, weapons, AI, user interfaces, and level design, all within the Unreal Engine ecosystem. The course's project-based approach allows developers to build a portfolio piece and gain practical skills directly applicable to Unreal Engine development.
Game Designer
The role of a Game Designer revolves around envisioning and creating the gameplay experience. This includes level design, enemy behavior, weapon mechanics, and user interfaces. This course helps build a foundation in these areas, particularly within the retro first-person shooter genre. The sections on level design, creating AI using behavior trees for enemies reminiscent of classic DOOM, and implementing various weapons like rocket launchers and miniguns directly inform the skills a Game Designer needs. The course's focus on Unreal Engine 5 blueprints empowers designers to prototype and iterate on gameplay ideas rapidly. Making interactable objects and level unlock systems is also highly related to the role of Game Designer.
Gameplay Programmer
A Gameplay Programmer implements the mechanics and systems that define how a game is played. This course helps build a foundation for a Gameplay Programmer interested in retro first-person shooters. By learning how to create weapons, enemy AI, and interactive objects using Unreal Engine 5 blueprints, one can gain practical experience in bringing game design concepts to life. The course emphasizes visual scripting, which helps you rapidly prototype and iterate on gameplay mechanics. The topics of creating controls, implementing ammo systems, designing weapon swapping systems, and creating damage systems are all highly related to success as a Gameplay Programmer.
AI Programmer
An AI Programmer specializes in creating the artificial intelligence that controls non-player characters (NPCs) in games. This course helps build a strong foundation for AI Programmers interested in implementing AI using behavior trees. The course provides a step-by-step guide to creating enemy AI for a retro first-person shooter, covering topics such as patrol behavior, attack logic, and reaction to player actions. The emphasis on visual scripting with Unreal Engine 5 blueprints makes it easy to experiment with different AI behaviors and iterate on the design.
Level Designer
A Level Designer crafts the environments and layouts where gameplay unfolds. This course may be useful for Level Designers who wish to create levels for retro-style first person shooter games using modern game engines. The course guides you through level design, enemy placement, and incorporating interactive elements such as doors and keycard systems. Specifically, the section on 'Designing The Level' and adding textures is directly applicable to a Level Designer's responsibilities. It can be helpful to also understand how lighting can affect the mood and gameplay of a level, a topic covered in this course.
Animator
Animators create the movement and visual effects for characters and objects in games. This course helps build a foundation for Animators interested in implementing animations for retro-style games. The course covers topics such as importing sprites, creating animations for enemies (moving, attacking), and implementing visual effects like blood splatters. While the course focuses on 2D sprites, the principles of animation and timing are transferable to 3D animation as well.
UI Designer
A UI Designer focuses on creating user interfaces. This course helps build a foundation for UI Designers interested in designing and implementing UI elements in games. The course covers the creation of various UI elements, such as game over screens, player HUDs, main menus, and pause screens, all within the context of a retro first-person shooter. Understanding how to implement these elements using Unreal Engine 5 blueprints is a valuable skill for UI Designers.
Sound Designer
Sound Designers create the audio elements of a game, including sound effects, music, and dialogue. This course helps build a foundation for Sound Designers interested in implementing sound effects in games. This course offers a section on adding sound effects to a game. These skills include level design, creating AI using behavior trees, and implementing various weapons are all related to the role of Sound Designer.
Technical Artist
A Technical Artist bridges the gap between artists and programmers, optimizing art assets for use in a game engine and developing tools to improve the art pipeline. This course may be useful for Technical Artists interested in understanding how art assets are implemented and interacted with in Unreal Engine 5. The course covers topics like importing sprites, creating animations, and implementing visual effects like blood splatters. The section on optimizing assets and understanding the limitations of the engine relevant to visual quality will be very informative. Knowledge of how to implement 3D models into Unreal Engine 5 using this course would be a good start.
XR Developer
XR Developer creates experiences in virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality. This course may be useful for XR Developers hoping to use retro FPS games as a platform to learn about game design. The course can provide a base level of knowledge about game development, including AI, level design, and gameplay programming, which are all important in the XR space. This course will also show how to perform different kinds of menu systems, like game over screens, pause screens, and main menu.
Character Artist
Character Artists create the visual appearance of characters in games, including their models, textures, and animations. This course may be useful for Character Artists who would like to understand how 8-directional sprites are used in a game. The course spends time importing enemy sprites and giving animations, demonstrating pawn sensing, and creating ranged and melee attacks for the enemy.
Software Developer
Software Developers design, develop, and test software applications. While not directly related to traditional software development, this course may be useful for Software Developers looking to learn new skills in the gaming industry or explore visual scripting with Unreal Engine 5 blueprints. Learning how to create a game from scratch can provide valuable insights into software design principles and project management. This course can also help developers to grow and learn more about level design and dynamic artificial intelligence, using behavior trees.
Tools Programmer
Tools Programmers develop software tools that help game developers create content more efficiently. This course may be useful for Tools Programmers who want to learn more about the game development pipeline and the challenges that artists and designers face. By understanding the processes involved in creating a retro first-person shooter, the tools programmer can develop tools that will streamline the game development workflow.
Physics Programmer
A Physics Programmer implements realistic physics simulations in games, controlling how objects move and interact with each other. This course may be useful for Physics Programmers interested in learning how physics can be applied in a game context. The course showcases how to develop features such as exploding barrels and weapons and how to implement damage for gameplay using collision-based events.

Reading list

We've selected two books that we think will supplement your learning. Use these to develop background knowledge, enrich your coursework, and gain a deeper understanding of the topics covered in How To Make A Retro FPS Game In Unreal Engine 5.
Provides valuable insights into common design patterns used in game development. It covers topics such as command patterns for weapon systems and state patterns for AI behavior. Understanding these patterns will help you write cleaner, more maintainable code for your Retro FPS game. This book is commonly used by industry professionals.
Provides a comprehensive overview of game design principles. It offers a wide range of perspectives and lenses to consider when designing your game. It is particularly useful for level design and creating engaging gameplay experiences. This book is commonly used as a textbook at academic institutions.

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