Descend nine floors beneath the Ninth Hollow Sanatorium. THE NINTH: Hollow Crown is a complete first-person survival-horror game template for Unreal Engine 5.8, written in clean, documented C++. Play it as-is, re-skin it, or take its systems apart for your own game.
Why it is worth the price
A finished game, not a single mechanic. Start from a complete, playable loop: title screen, nine floors, a finale with two endings and credits. Every system below already works together.
Systems that are usually separate assets, integrated and tested together: a procedural level generator, an AI Director with 14 enemy behaviours, first-person IK hands, inventory and crafting, a save system with migration and slot recovery, a full menu and HUD UI, and a horror audio engine.
Production-scale content you would otherwise have to make: 56 voice lines across 4 voices (dubbed into 9 languages), 139 sound effects, 205 creature vocals, 7 music cues and 9 floor ambiences, plus UI and subtitles in 10 languages.
Built to be read and changed: about 67k lines of documented C++, a 24-page guide with QuickStart and architecture chapters, and automated tests that tell you when a change breaks layouts, saves or localization.
Ship-minded details: difficulty modes including one-life, accessibility options, keyboard and gamepad rebinding, a low scalability tier for integrated GPUs, and 20 Steam-ready achievements that also work offline.
Gameplay systems
Procedural floors: 9 themed floors (Reception, Ward, Laboratory, Storage, Maintenance, Isolation, Research, Ritual, The Truth), rebuilt from a seed every run. A 2,700-floor automated test sweep found no unwinnable layouts, and saves store only what changed.
AI Director and 14 enemy behaviours: hearing, sight and darkness-teleporting senses; ceiling crawlers, wall-phasing wraiths, exploding bloaters and splitting patients; a doll that moves only when unseen, twins that flank, a health-draining leech, a vision-corrupting broadcaster, and the unkillable crowned antagonist.
The player: two-bone IK first-person hands that reach, grip, pinch and press on doors, levers and items, and brace a palm on walls; flashlight with battery, stamina, sanity effects, hold-breath hiding, four weapons (pipe, pistol, pump shotgun, flare gun) and throwables.
Inventory and progression: inventory, crafting and key items; 19 collectible notes, a journal, map, minimap and live objectives; the breaker "Reboot Sequence" puzzle; typewriter saves with ink-ribbon rules by difficulty; 20 achievements (Steam-ready, work offline).
Secrets: a hidden room behind a false wall on every floor, holding that floor's last note: a side objective, marked on the map once found, with its own achievement.
Finale: a scripted crown confrontation with two endings.
Difficulty and settings: three difficulties plus a one-life mode; accessibility options; rebinding of every keyboard action and every gamepad button action (sticks and pause are fixed); and a scalable graphics tier for low-end GPUs.
Audio
56 English voice lines across 4 distinct voices, dubbed into 9 languages; all voices generated with ElevenLabs.
139 sound effects, 205 creature vocals, 7 music cues and 9 looping floor ambiences.
A procedural music and ambience engine with crossfaded decks.
Localization
English plus 9 languages: Simplified Chinese, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, German, French, Japanese, Korean and Hindi.
CJK and Devanagari text support (Devanagari font included); live language switching.
Technical
Unreal Engine 5.8 C++ code plugin (one Runtime module, NinthCore), about 67k lines, documented architecture; no Blueprints required (an optional Blueprint function library is included).
Plugin dependencies (required): Enhanced Input, Online Subsystem and Online Subsystem Utils; see Requirements and plugin dependencies below.
Lumen; Windows (Win64) only; gamepad and keyboard/mouse; single-player.
Nanite: enabled on 38 of the product's 68 static meshes (all architecture and weapon meshes, 16 of 24 furniture pieces and 9 of 14 props); the 17 pickups and the other furniture and props are standard meshes. Without Nanite support, the Nanite meshes render with their fallback meshes. Epic Nanite documentation: Nanite Virtualized Geometry in Unreal Engine
LODs: every product static mesh ships with a single LOD (LOD0); the Nanite meshes scale detail through Nanite and their fallback meshes. In the Epic template content, the two mannequin meshes have 3 LODs and the template grenade launcher has 4.
What's included
The complete game as an Unreal Engine 5.8 C++ code plugin, with full source code and all of its content: floors, enemies, player, UI, audio and localization.
A demo map: open it, press Play, and the full game runs from the first floor to the ending.
A 24-page setup and usage guide (Docs/THE_NINTH_Documentation.pdf in the plugin) covering setup, the demo, and how to customise its characters, floors, enemies and items and add languages.
Epic Games template content as stand-in/example content (Content/Demo, 141 assets): the UE5 Manny/Quinn mannequins with animations and control rigs, and three template weapon meshes.
Third-party content: the Noto Sans Devanagari font (SIL Open Font License 1.1, license included) and seven Poly Haven surface texture sets (CC0); full list in Docs/THIRD_PARTY.md.
Requirements and plugin dependencies
Unreal Engine 5.8 on Windows 10/11 (64-bit).
Required engine plugins: Enhanced Input (all player and menu input and rebinding), Online Subsystem (mirrors the achievements to your project's online service, such as Steam, and pauses the game when its overlay opens) and Online Subsystem Utils (finds that service for the game world). All three ship with Unreal Engine 5.8, are enabled by default in new projects and are enabled automatically by the plugin. The C++ module links against them, so keep them enabled. With no online service configured (the engine default), achievements are saved locally and everything works offline. Steam is optional: the plugin does not enable Online Subsystem Steam (setup steps are in the guide). No other plugins, SDKs or downloads are needed.
Project Settings > Input must use the Enhanced Input default classes (the UE 5.8 default).
Enabling the plugin sets the project's Game Instance and Game User Settings classes and adds cook and language-staging rules (plugin Config/Engine.ini and Game.ini). To use your own classes, override them in Config/PluginOverrideEngine.ini and PluginOverrideGame.ini (see the guide).
The included Epic template rig CR_Mannequin_Body uses Control Rig Spline, an engine plugin marked Beta in UE 5.8 and enabled by default; the game itself does not use that rig.
Setup: install the plugin to UE 5.8 from Fab, enable "THE NINTH: Hollow Crown - First-Person Survival Horror Template" in Edit > Plugins (search "THE NINTH") and restart the editor, tick Show Engine Content in the Content Browser settings, then open Engine > Plugins > THE NINTH: Hollow Crown - First-Person Survival Horror Template > Maps > L_HollowCrown_Demo and press Play.
Fab ships the plugin precompiled for UE 5.8 (Win64). Visual Studio 2022 (17.14) or Visual Studio 2026 with the "Game development with C++" workload is only needed to modify the C++ or to package a build.
Includes a low scalability tier for integrated GPUs; developed on an Intel Iris Xe laptop.
Please note
Enemies ship with stand-in bodies: the Epic UE5 mannequins with Epic template animations. Their behaviour, motion and audio are complete, and any character on the UE5 Mannequin skeleton (or retargeted to it) can replace a stand-in (see the guide).
Marketing images are designed from in-engine renders of this product.
Generative AI: all voice lines (English and the 9 dubs), music and sound effects were generated with ElevenLabs; the studio logo, title logo, title key art and weapon icons were made with generative AI image tools; portions of the code and the procedural art were produced with the help of generative AI tools, under the direction of AloneMind Studio.
Steam is a trademark of Valve Corporation.