Dean Hall, the creator of DayZ and head of RocketWerkz, says game developers have surrendered too much control to large engine vendors. In a Reddit announcement published October 15, 2026, he described the industry as “rotting from its core” and introduced BRUTAL, a source-available C# framework intended to give studios a lower-level alternative to mandatory dependence on Unity or Unreal.
Hall’s argument is about control, accountability and commercial incentives—not that every project should immediately abandon established engines. BRUTAL is free for commercial use with attribution, asks for no royalties, and is already being used by RocketWerkz and, according to Hall, by Ludeon for a new RimWorld engine.
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What Dean Hall means by “our industry is rotting from its core”
Hall’s central complaint is that developers have allowed companies whose interests may not align with their own to control too much of the technology needed to make and ship games. He wrote: “Our industry is rotting from its core, outwards in every direction, and it has been for some time. Driven by greed, driven by a race to the bottom on price.”
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That is a criticism of the industry’s incentives, not a declaration that Unity, Unreal or other mature engines are unusable. Hall explicitly says he does not believe developers should abandon those tools tomorrow; for many games, he says, they remain the right choice.
Why Epic’s Unreal and Unity are in his sights
Hall says Unreal is not accountable enough to developers
Hall says he asked Epic chief executive Tim Sweeney at GDC 2025 whether Unreal was accountable to developers for performance and stability. Hall recalls that Sweeney responded by discussing additional demos and social-media messaging to counter what he called “Unreal slop.” Hall says that answer did not address his concern and writes: “I continue to believe Unreal is not accountable enough to developers.”
He also points to a potential 5% royalty on game revenue above Unreal’s licensing threshold, referring to Epic’s 2026 announcement. That figure and its threshold are part of Hall’s warning about the relationship developers accept when they build on a major vendor’s technology; it should not be read as a universal charge on every Unreal project.
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His Unity criticism concerns dependence and business decisions
Hall’s Unity argument is broader. He cites public business decisions, developer dependence and account-access concerns described in his announcement. The underlying risk, in his view, is that a studio can invest years in a project while decisions made outside the studio change its costs, access or ability to continue working.
He qualifies the criticism himself: “I don’t think any of this means developers should abandon Unity or Unreal tomorrow. For many projects they’re absolutely the right choice.”
What BRUTAL actually is
A framework, not a turnkey game engine
BRUTAL is a source-available framework written around current C# and Vulkan. It provides a C# interop layer to native APIs and libraries, along with foundational systems for mathematics, memory management, strings, job scheduling, logging and localization. It uses unmanaged memory and unsafe code where appropriate.
Unlike an integrated engine, BRUTAL does not prescribe a complete rendering pipeline, editor, asset workflow or universal set of game systems. Teams choose their own renderer and the rest of their technology stack. Hall says that freedom can be harder to use than Unity, Unreal or Godot, but it is useful for unusual, performance-sensitive projects that do not fit a general-purpose engine’s assumptions.
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Commercial terms
Hall says BRUTAL is free for commercial use subject to attribution. His licensing summary is direct: “There are no royalties and we don’t want a percentage of your game’s revenue.” The framework’s source availability gives a studio the option to inspect, modify and build systems on top of the code rather than relying only on a vendor-controlled binary.
Supported setup
- Operating systems: Windows and Linux.
- Runtime: .NET 10.
- Graphics: a Vulkan-capable GPU is required for rendering.
- Engineering model: teams manage more of the low-level technology themselves, including renderer and stack choices.
Projects already using BRUTAL
Kitten Space Agency
RocketWerkz uses BRUTAL for Kitten Space Agency, a free pre-alpha spaceflight simulation distributed through Ahwoo. The project aims to simulate a real-scale solar system with high-precision coordinates, complex orbital trajectories and large rendering distances—requirements that benefit from control over data representation, scheduling and rendering decisions.
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The project uses an optional-donation model. A report published October 15, 2026 said donations had exceeded $230,000. That is a reported project total, not an audited industry measurement.
Ludeon’s Waylith engine for RimWorld
Hall says BRUTAL helped Ludeon build the Waylith engine for RimWorld. He reports that Ludeon’s own tests found performance improvements of two to four times, with most existing mods remaining compatible. Those results are self-reported by Ludeon through Hall and are not an independent benchmark; the outcome for another game will depend on its architecture, workload and implementation.
BRUTAL compared with Unity and Unreal
| Comparison point | BRUTAL | Unity | Unreal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstraction level | Focused, lower-level framework | Integrated general-purpose engine | Integrated general-purpose engine |
| Control | Choose the renderer, libraries and systems | More vendor-provided defaults and services | More vendor-provided defaults and services |
| Engineering burden | Higher; the studio builds and maintains more technology | Lower for common game-production workflows | Lower for common game-production workflows |
| Commercial dependence | Free commercial use with attribution; no requested royalties | Terms and access depend on Unity’s business decisions | Terms include licensing arrangements; Hall highlights a potential 5% royalty above a stated threshold |
| Best fit described by Hall | Unusual or performance-sensitive games needing control | Many projects that benefit from a mature integrated toolset | Many projects that benefit from a mature integrated toolset |
The trade-off is straightforward: BRUTAL offers more choice at the technology boundary, while an integrated engine supplies more ready-made infrastructure. A team considering it must value control enough to accept the additional engineering work.
Best Value
Who should consider BRUTAL?
- Teams with a specialized technical problem: for example, simulations requiring unusual precision, scale or scheduling.
- Studios seeking source-level control: especially those concerned about vendor changes affecting access, costs or shipping.
- Engine programmers: teams able to design, debug and maintain their own renderer and supporting systems.
- Projects with a long technical lifespan: where owning more of the stack may reduce dependence on future vendor decisions.
It is a poor fit for a team that mainly wants an editor-driven workflow, a large ecosystem of ready-made tools and minimal engine programming. Hall’s own description is unambiguous: “I do not believe this is the tool that everyone should use to make a game.”
What adopting it would involve
- Define the game’s technical requirements. Identify whether the project truly needs custom rendering, high-precision simulation, unusual memory behavior or other capabilities that a general-purpose engine does not provide easily.
- Confirm the platform baseline. Plan for Windows or Linux development, .NET 10 and Vulkan-capable graphics hardware.
- Select the rest of the stack. BRUTAL does not make the renderer or every game subsystem for you, so choose the libraries, renderer, asset pipeline and tools the project will maintain.
- Budget for engine engineering. Account for debugging, profiling, tooling, content workflows and platform support that an integrated engine would normally supply.
- Review attribution obligations. Commercial use is permitted, but Hall’s summary includes an attribution requirement; the project’s exact license text should govern the implementation.
What this launch changes
BRUTAL does not replace Unity or Unreal as a general-purpose engine. It gives studios another path: a public, modifiable foundation that can reduce dependence on a single vendor while requiring substantially more technical ownership. Hall’s broader point is that developers have options only when they control enough of the tools beneath their games: “If the tools are public, if you have the source code, and if you’re free to build your own systems on top of them, you have options.”
For readers asking what engine Kitten Space Agency uses, the answer is BRUTAL. For everyone else, the meaningful question is not whether BRUTAL wins a universal engine comparison, but whether a project’s need for control and specialization justifies taking on the work that mature engines hide.
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