My experiences optimizing graphics, lighting and physics for a stealth game tutorial - Gust of Wind

I’m working on a stealth game set in sometimes 0.5km wide open environments with big rocking sail ships and vast cavern networks. The levels are populated by patrolling guards, other NPCs and carriable objects and lit by dynamic light sources, since real time shadows are important for a mechanic of hiding in the shadows.

After releasing the game in Early Access half a year ago, I’ve spent much of my efforts in trying to make it run better. However, most of the optimizations in this post have been done before that release. These tricks focus on the asset and graphics side (which I have a much longer background with than coding), and the approach is on a more surface level without delving very deep into profiling.

Here's the blog post

Some highlights:

Hiding room objects:

Character LODs

Hiding character not in same room

Changing ragdolls to kinematic after death:

The game is Gust of Wind, available in Early Access on Steam.