My immediate thought was "this is like that project which hosts UE1 games inside UE5" and it turns out it's the same project, they've just rebranded from DXU24 to Surreal, and they now seem to have their own open-source frontend in addition to the license-encumbered UE5 frontend.
Seems I jumped to conclusions, both UE1 reimplementation projects are using the name "Surreal" but indeed there doesn't seem to be a direct connection between them. The more the merrier in that case. To set the record straight then:
Surreal98 (formerly DXU24) hosts UE1 games inside UE5. Plans to release as a commercial product?
SurrealEngine (this post) is a standalone UE1 reimplementation. This one is open source.
Yup. SurrealEnegine should run fine at least on 64/128MB video card suppporting SDL2 and Open GL 2.1 (or GL 1.4 by hacking up the engine renderer like crazy).
There's no point on reimplementing a game needing either a propietary engine (cough, cough, OpenMafia's switch into Unity) and/or a modern one with crazy requeriments defying the original purpose of replaying a game when a low end machine can't run a 20-24 years old game.
SDL2 it's multiplatform. With Unity, you are doomed with Risc-V, PowerPC or any non-released platform. Thus, the project it's already kaputt since the beginning.
These might be available soon. Is not like the community didn't mess with UT and Deus Ex renderers since forever. That's how GMDX works today on DX9/GL video cards (and even DX10 and 11).
Also, Deus Ex it's one of the most played games ever due to its cult status (and, well, people loves conspiracy theories on the 9/11 and the Covid and in-game terror attacks). Having a GL 2.1 renderer (even a software one) will be one of the first succesful tasks being done.
I'm pretty sure even PPC Amigans would love playing it on their machines.
DX might be like the old Nethack 3.4.3 which have been ported everywhere, even to more platforms than Doom.
The developer has a bunch of WIP videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dxu2424/videos