ABOUT UNREALWATCH

Hi. Unrealwatch is made by me, a solo developer and student. There is no studio behind it and no team. It is just one person who wanted to understand how a full online game actually works, end to end, by building one.

That means the game client, the dedicated servers, the backend, the matchmaking, the launcher, and this website are all me. I am learning a lot of it as I go, so please treat this as the work-in-progress that it is.

Unrealwatch is a competitive hero shooter, and it is in early alpha. I built it from scratch rather than from a kit, because the point was to learn the whole stack, not just to ship a game quickly.

It is openly inspired by Blizzard's Overwatch. Genji and King's Row are Overwatch designs, and I want to be upfront about that: this is a non-commercial fan learning project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Blizzard Entertainment.

It is playable, and it is fun to me, but it is also early. Expect rough edges, missing features, and the occasional thing that breaks. I would rather be honest about that than pretend it is more finished than it is.

These are the goals I am aiming for. I will not claim I have hit all of them perfectly, but they are the principles I keep coming back to when I make a decision.

• Server-authoritative. I want the server, not a player's machine, to be the source of truth for what happens in a match, so the game does not simply trust whatever a client reports.
• Dedicated servers. Matches run on real dedicated servers rather than on one player's machine.
• No pay-to-win. Anything you can buy is cosmetic. Spending money should never make you stronger.
• No client-side trust. I try to design as if the client can be tampered with, and to check the things that matter on the server.

To be clear, this is still an early alpha. Proper anti-cheat and a lot more hardening are still ahead of me, so please read these as the direction I am working toward rather than promises I have already delivered.

If you are curious what it is made of, here is the short version. Part of the fun for me is seeing all of these pieces talk to each other.

• Unreal Engine 5.8Game client and dedicated server
• FastAPI + PythonBackend API, matchmaking, real-time
• Tauri 2 + ReactDesktop launcher with auto-updates
• PostgreSQL + RedisDatabase and real-time cache
• Docker + CI/CDContainerized deploy pipeline
• Next.js + GSAPThis marketing site

A rough timeline of where things have gotten to. It moves at the pace one person and a lot of late evenings allow.

• 2025Started the project as a UE5 prototype.
• Early 2026Got the backend, launcher, and matchmaking running.
• March 2026Added the social system, cosmetics, and match reconnection.
• April 2026Launched this website and the competitive rank ladder.
• May 2026Overhauled Genji, added the dual-currency economy, and spent a lot of time hardening things.
• June 2026Fixed a long list of dedicated-server bugs, added the in-game hero gallery, and polished a lot of UI.
• NextMore heroes, more maps, and more game modes, slowly.

Unrealwatch is free to play. If you want to try it, you can create an account and grab the launcher. If other players are online you will be in a match soon after, though it is early alpha, so quiet hours can mean a longer wait.

The best place to find me is the Discord. Feedback, bug reports, and a friendly hello are all genuinely welcome. It helps more than you would think.