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Dean Hall’s Ahwoo and RocketWerkz have released BRUTAL, a free, open-source C# framework for building games or creating a custom engine foundation. Announced in Auckland on 15 October 2026, BRUTAL is deliberately lower-level than an all-in-one engine: it connects modern C#/.NET code to native APIs and high-performance C and C++ libraries, including Vulkan, while leaving a studio to design its own renderer, editor, scene systems and production tools.
What BRUTAL is—and what it is not
BRUTAL is a framework rather than a finished, general-purpose game engine. A team can run a game directly on its facilities, or use them as the base layer for an engine tailored to its project. The distinction matters because BRUTAL does not arrive with the conventional engine package of a visual editor, scene graph, renderer, asset pipeline and prescribed gameplay architecture.
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Its core is a custom interop layer between C#/.NET and native APIs and libraries. Supporting components address mathematics, memory management, strings, collections, job scheduling, logging and localisation. Developers assemble those pieces into the technology stack their game needs instead of accepting a fixed set of engine systems.
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Why Dean Hall and Ahwoo released it
The project is built around technology ownership. Teams can inspect and change the source, keep control of their architecture and avoid royalties charged by a proprietary engine provider. Dean Hall, the DayZ creator associated with the release through Ahwoo and RocketWerkz, described the goal as giving developers the option to build an engine without first spending four years constructing its foundations. His accompanying principle is blunt: “You are only as independent as your tools are.”
That is not a recommendation that every studio should write an engine. BRUTAL instead lowers the cost of choosing that path when a team has unusual performance, simulation or tooling requirements and wants to own the resulting technology.
Which projects are using BRUTAL?
The announcement says BRUTAL currently powers six game projects across three studios. The named work includes:
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- RocketWerkz’s Kitten Space Agency, Art of the Rail and Torpedia.
- Ludeon Studios’ Waylith engine work for RimWorld.
- Floating Origin Interactive’s Afterskies.
- A project from Kerbal Space Program creator Felipe Falanghe.
RocketWerkz’s announcement also identifies ICARUS, Stationeers and Kitten Space Agency among the studio’s titles, and reports that ICARUS had sold more than 3.3 million units in 2026. That sales figure is a RocketWerkz statement; it is not an independent market measurement and does not mean every listed RocketWerkz title uses BRUTAL.
What performance evidence exists?
Ludeon has published results from its own Unity-to-Waylith transition, reproduced in Ahwoo’s materials. Those tests report a two- to four-times performance improvement, 2.2-times performance for a late-game colony compared with version 1.6, and a reduction in loading a 1,500-mod pack from 14 minutes to six minutes.
These are Ludeon’s project-specific measurements, not independent benchmarks of BRUTAL. They show what one experienced team reported after moving a particular game and workload to its Waylith technology. Results for another game will depend on its algorithms, content, threading model, memory use, renderer and the systems the team chooses to build.
Can you use BRUTAL in a commercial game?
Yes. BRUTAL is free to use, modify and distribute, including in commercial games, and it carries no royalties. Its MIT-based licence has practical attribution requirements:
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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstall- Keep the BRUTAL copyright notice in the game’s credits or an equivalent acknowledgement.
- Display the BRUTAL logo before gameplay.
- Include a
NOTICE.txtfile.
The repository states that this licence has not yet received OSI approval. Components supplied by third parties remain under their own licences, so a production release still needs a complete dependency and notice audit rather than relying only on BRUTAL’s top-level terms.
How BRUTAL compares with integrated engines
BRUTAL can serve as an alternative to adopting a fully integrated engine, but it is not a drop-in replacement for one. The practical differences are architectural rather than a simple feature checklist.
| Decision area | BRUTAL | Integrated engines such as Unity, Unreal or Godot |
|---|---|---|
| Abstraction level | Low-level C#/.NET framework with native interop. | Higher-level engine systems, usually including an editor and ready-made runtime features. |
| Architecture | Your team builds the renderer, scene model, asset flow and other core systems. | The engine supplies a prescribed architecture that can be extended through its tools and APIs. |
| Control and precision | Direct native and Vulkan access, explicit allocation choices and source-level control. | More abstraction and automation, generally reducing the amount of infrastructure a team must own. |
| Team burden | You must design, debug, document and maintain the stack, including editor and pipeline work. | The engine vendor or open-source project maintains the shared foundation, while your team learns its conventions. |
| Commercial licensing | Commercial use without royalties, subject to BRUTAL attribution and each dependency’s licence. | Terms differ by project and can change; review the current licence for the engine and its add-ons. |
| Modding | No mod architecture is imposed; the game team defines formats, APIs and update policies. | Mod support depends on the engine’s extension model and the systems the game exposes. |
Ludeon’s Waylith work reportedly preserved most existing RimWorld mods, but that is evidence of Ludeon’s migration and compatibility effort, not a built-in BRUTAL feature.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How difficult is BRUTAL to use?
The official materials target experienced programmers. BRUTAL uses unmanaged memory and unsafe code where appropriate, supplies few guardrails and leaves architectural decisions to the studio. A team is responsible for tracking ownership and lifetimes, preventing data races, handling failures, building debugging tools and maintaining compatibility across its supported platforms.
That low-level control can be valuable for a simulation-heavy game, a custom renderer or a studio that wants to change its technology without waiting for an engine vendor. It can also multiply the work before designers can iterate. A realistic adoption plan should budget for, at minimum:
Best Value
- A core-engine group able to work comfortably with C#, .NET, native APIs, interop and unsafe code.
- Platform build and packaging systems for Windows, Linux and macOS.
- Profiling, crash reporting, memory diagnostics and automated testing.
- An asset pipeline, editor or authoring tools, and a content versioning strategy.
- Documentation and onboarding for every system the team creates.
Rian Drake, BRUTAL’s Head of Engineering at Ahwoo, summarizes the trade-off: there are no guardrails, so developers are responsible for the systems they build and the mistakes they make—but also retain the control to correct them.
Who should consider it?
BRUTAL is a plausible fit for an established team that wants source ownership, predictable control over memory and scheduling, direct native or Vulkan integration, or an engine shaped around a specific game. It is a poor fit for a small team that needs a visual editor, rapid prototyping, ready-made rendering and physics, or a large library of turnkey production tools immediately.
The sensible evaluation is to prototype one technically risky subsystem—such as a job system, renderer path or simulation workload—then measure the staffing and tooling required to make it shippable. BRUTAL’s zero-royalty licence removes a fee, not the engineering responsibility of owning an engine stack.
Bottom line
BRUTAL gives experienced teams a source-available C# foundation for building exactly the technology they want, with Windows, Linux and macOS targets and no royalties on commercial games. Its value is control: the same choice also means building and maintaining the editor, renderer, architecture and safety practices that an integrated engine would normally provide.
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