Lore; next gen open source VCS
Epic Games has open-sourced Lore, a next-generation version control system designed for large-scale game development. It aims to address scalability and performance limitations of traditional VCS tools like Git and Perforce for huge binary files and complex workflows.
Background
- Epic Games (the company behind Unreal Engine and Fortnite) has open-sourced **Lore**, described as a next-generation version control system (VCS) — the software developers use to track changes to code and collaborate.
- It was originally built for managing the massive multi-gigabyte files and complex binary assets (3D models, textures, audio) common in game development, where traditional VCS tools like Git struggle.
- "Open source" means the source code is publicly available for free, allowing anyone to inspect, modify, or self-host it (hosted at github.com/EpicGames/lore).
- This matters because most of the industry relies on either Git (great for text/code, poor for large files) or proprietary, expensive systems like Perforce. Lore could fill that gap with a free, modern alternative tailored to game and media workflows.
- Prior context: Epic previously developed an internal VCS called "Shelved" for Unreal Engine; Lore appears to be a rewritten or evolved version of that effort, now released publicly.