Design Brief

Errata runs on Unreal Engine 5, backed by a federated spatial-logic system with active context-mapped inference. It combines a hexagonal spatial substrate layer and in-depth three-dimensional world modelling and navigation with real-time machine learning to infer player narrative direction, adjust world behavior, and allocate system resources based on live projected demand. 

The game balances narrative consequence with infrastructural efficiency by dynamically adjusting virtual load zones, canonical memory states, and behavioral reaction scaffolds across a hybrid of virtualized and embedded world engines.

That sounds pretty fancy, right?

In plain English what that means is pretty simple: Errata uses Unreal Engine 5 with a proprietary back end layer that is built to categorize data so that AI can sort it and use it to build new, unique scenarios. As players navigate Errata’s detailed and scalable 3D landscape each adventure will be unique, in context, and bound by Errata’s setting, cultural landscape, and consequence based reputation system. All this creates a rich, personal, and immersive experience.

World Presentation Layer

This is what players see and interact with: a richly detailed world rendered through cutting-edge game engine technology. It includes characters, environments, animations, and sound. But what sets it apart is how that world shifts based on the choices players make. Not through fixed scripts and questlines that once activated are not worth repeating, but through a deeper, evolving logic underneath.

This is managed completely un Unreal Engine 5. We’re using Unreal Engine because of its flexibility, ease of adoption, and because at this point players and developers know what to expect with it.  This allows us to focus on world building, allocating resources where we need to in order to carry out our project. 

Everything you can see and interact with is managed through UE5.

Think of it as the skin of a living organism. Beautiful, reactive, and ever-changing.

Consequential Logic Layer

Underneath the surface, Errata tracks what players do, and charts in-world relationship changes to create long term consequences. The system doesn’t just log whether you made a choice; it looks at the patterns over time. Are you conserving, extracting, manipulating, or resisting? The game gradually responds to who you are becoming, not just what you clicked.

What does this mean?  It means that:

  • Each NPC, just like each player, is created with a procedurally generated set of values and relationships.
  • Each interaction with that character has the potential to have an pathway to change relationships with that character.
  • Each interaction with this character may adjust interactions with other characters it has a relationship with, either positive or negative.
  • Every action has a consequence, and that consequence may matter more than any transitory cash reward.
  • Over time these stack up, creating reputation and long term awareness.

This is where stories bend around the player, not the other way around.

Adaptive World Layer

Errata’s world isn’t static. Its cultures, factions, and environments can change based on how groups of players interact with them. That means one player’s actions might alter the options available to another, even in different parts of the map or timeline.

How does this work?

  • Each character is part of its own cohort.
  • The cohorts opinion changes based on how you treat its members, and how well its members are regarded within the cohort.
  • Each cohort is part of social group.
  • The opinions and reactions of social groups change based on how well the cohort is regarded within it.
  • Each social group is part of a faction.
  • Each faction is part of a culture.

The world remembers. And it evolves.

Spatial Intelligence and Load Management

Behind the scenes, Errata runs on a custom-built logical back-end. This is the complex engineering. We’re not creating a game engine though. As we’ve said before, the product is deployed on UE5.

But we are changing how UE5 is used through an object management layer that can be re-packaged and deployed in other environments. The world is divided into zones that respond dynamically to what’s happening in them, allocating resources when needed, shifting narrative weight, and distributing activity efficiently across servers. 

This is intended to resolve some of the limitations of Unreal Engine while keeping budgets at a small studio level. 

This means the core of what makes Errata special, its object management layer, can be shared and used with other products.

Sharing is at the Heart of Māori Kaupapa

In te ao Māori we don’t just develop for ourselves. Our work contributes to the wider community if it is done right, and that goes into our philosophy building this.  We want this technology to open new ways of making games think, not just for us, but for everyone.  It is our sincere hope that the work we do is just a first step, and that other studios follow us and work with us to create truly mind-blowing products.

To facilitate this we will be releasing this system as a standalone product, with its own testing and release process that while tied into the Errata development by necessity, will have its own life and uses in the development community.

This is the Māori value system at work at a global level.