With the news recently about RimWorld dropping Unity for their own game engine, we now have a little more info on the tech behind it called BRUTAL.
BRUTAL is not a full game engine by itself, it's a C# framework for developers to build with announced by Ahwoo in collaboration with RocketWerkz. The framework currently powers six game projects across three studios, including RocketWerkz's Kitten Space Agency (KSA), which won the Most Innovative Hi-Tech Creative Technology Solution at the 2026 NZ Hi-Tech Awards. RocketWerkz is also using the framework for other projects in development, including Art of the Rail and Torpedia.
From the press release sent to GamingOnLinux:
“I'm not suggesting everyone should make their own game engine. I'm suggesting every developer should have the option to do so, without having to spend four years building the foundations first,” said Dean Hall, founder and CEO of Ahwoo and RocketWerkz. “You are only as independent as your tools are.”
Felipe Falanghe, creator of Kerbal Space Program, is among the developers building with BRUTAL. His experience creating a spaceflight simulation and working through the limitations of its underlying engine informs his approach to the framework. Falanghe collaborates with RocketWerkz on Kitten Space Agency and is using BRUTAL for his next game.
“Coming from Unity to working in BRUTAL, initially it was a bit daunting,” said Falanghe. “But once you’re there, you own everything that you’ve created. You have full control and full knowledge of all of those things and how they operate.”
“We called it BRUTAL because it can be brutal to use at times, and we wanted to be upfront about that,” said Rian Drake, BRUTAL’s Head of Engineering at Ahwoo. “We do not believe this is the tool that everyone should use to make a game. There are no guardrails. You’re responsible for the systems you build and the mistakes you make, but you also have the control to put things right.
“When you hit a performance limit, you can get into the code, understand what’s happening and change it. RocketWerkz’s progress on Kitten Space Agency and Ludeon’s work on Waylith for RimWorld show what a team can achieve with that freedom.”
You can also read more in the Reddit post announcement.
Something to keep in mind, is that it is not open source. It's source-available. It is completely free to use with no royalties but it's using a custom license that requires attribution (a logo before gameplay).
Close enough - and good to see more developers appreciate that having the source code available is important.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.