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Dean Hall, 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 released BRUTAL, a source-available C# framework designed to let studios build around native technology without mandatory dependence on Unity or Unreal. Hall presents it as a lower-level option for teams willing to take on more engineering work—not as a drop-in replacement for a full game engine.
What Dean Hall means by “rotting from its core”
Hall’s argument is about control and incentives, not a claim that every commercial engine is unusable. He wrote that the industry is “rotting from its core, outwards in every direction,” driven by “greed” and “a race to the bottom on price.” In his view, studios have “surrendered an extraordinary amount of control” to companies whose interests may not align with the developers making and supporting games.
That dependence can affect how a project is built, what it costs to ship, which platforms it supports and how much leverage a studio has when a vendor changes pricing, licensing or account policies. Hall’s broader principle is: “You are only as independent as your tools are.”
Why Epic’s Unreal is part of the criticism
Hall said he asked Epic chief executive Tim Sweeney at GDC 2025 whether Unreal was accountable to developers for performance and stability. Hall reports that Sweeney answered by discussing additional demos and social-media messaging to counter what he called “Unreal slop.” Hall says that response did not address his concern and wrote: “I continue to believe Unreal is not accountable enough to developers.”
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He also points to the possibility of a 5% royalty on game revenue above Unreal’s licensing threshold, as described in Epic’s 2026 announcement. Hall’s statement is an argument about the relationship developers should question; it is not an independently audited estimate of what every Unreal project will pay. The exact threshold and a project’s contract still determine any applicable obligation.
Why Unity is also in the frame
Hall’s Unity criticism is broader. He cites public business decisions and concerns about developers’ access to their accounts and tools. He does not say studios should abandon Unity immediately: “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
BRUTAL is a source-available framework, not a turnkey engine with an editor, renderer and every production system bundled together. RocketWerkz describes it as a C# interop layer for native APIs and libraries, with supporting systems for mathematics, memory management, strings, job scheduling, logging, localization and related foundation work.
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The framework uses unmanaged memory and unsafe code where appropriate. It focuses on current C# and Vulkan while allowing a development team to choose its own renderer and the rest of its technology stack. That flexibility is the point: a studio can replace or extend individual systems instead of accepting one vendor’s complete set of defaults.
License and commercial use
Hall says BRUTAL can be used commercially for free with attribution. His licensing summary is explicit: “There are no royalties and we don’t want a percentage of your game’s revenue.” The announcement does not turn that sentence into a promise that every future legal detail is irrelevant, so teams should read the project’s current license and attribution requirements before shipping.
BRUTAL versus an integrated engine
| Decision area | BRUTAL | Unity or Unreal |
|---|---|---|
| Abstraction | Focused framework and foundation libraries; the studio assembles the rest. | Integrated, general-purpose engine with editor, rendering and production workflows. |
| Control | Choose the renderer, packages and systems; inspect and modify source-available code. | Faster initial setup, but more defaults and vendor-controlled layers. |
| Engineering burden | Higher. Teams must understand their target game and implement more technology themselves. | Lower for common genres because mature tools and pipelines are already supplied. |
| Specialization | Intended for unusual, performance-sensitive projects that do not fit standard assumptions. | Broad feature coverage aimed at many genres and team sizes. |
| Commercial dependence | Hall’s stated goal is to avoid royalties and preserve options through public source. | Terms, subscriptions, licensing changes and vendor decisions remain part of the relationship. |
| Platform details in the announcement | Windows and Linux, .NET 10 and a Vulkan-capable GPU for rendering. | Requirements vary by engine version, target platform and project configuration. |
The trade-off is therefore control versus convenience. BRUTAL can remove layers a team does not want, but it also removes assumptions and ready-made features that make a conventional engine productive.
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Projects already using the framework
Kitten Space Agency
RocketWerkz says BRUTAL powers Kitten Space Agency, a free pre-alpha spaceflight simulation distributed through Ahwoo. A secondary report dated October 15, 2026, said its optional-donation model had raised more than $230,000. That figure is a reported donation total, not an independently audited revenue statement.
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The project is intended to simulate a solar system at real scale, with high-precision coordinates, complex orbital trajectories and very large rendering distances. Those requirements illustrate why a studio might prefer to control its memory, scheduling, numerical and rendering choices rather than adapt a conventional engine’s assumptions.
Ludeon’s Waylith engine for RimWorld
Hall also says Ludeon used BRUTAL while building the Waylith engine for RimWorld. According to Hall’s account, Ludeon’s own tests showed performance improvements of two to four times, while most existing mods remained compatible. These are self-reported project results, not an independent benchmark, and the result may depend on the workload, baseline implementation and test conditions.
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Who should consider BRUTAL?
BRUTAL is most credible for a team that has a specific technical reason to avoid a general-purpose engine and the staff to own its technology stack. Before choosing it, a studio should be able to answer the following:
- Which systems must be different from a standard engine’s implementation—rendering, simulation precision, streaming, memory or scheduling?
- Who will maintain the native interop, build pipeline, platform integrations, tools and debugging workflow?
- Can the team support Windows and Linux development, .NET 10 and a Vulkan-capable GPU?
- Does retaining source-level control outweigh the time saved by an integrated editor and ready-made asset pipeline?
- Has the team reviewed the current attribution and commercial-use terms for its planned release?
A studio making a conventional project with a small engineering team may reasonably choose Unity or Unreal because their integrated workflows reduce risk and shorten the path to a playable build. Hall himself says BRUTAL is not a tool everyone should use and that RocketWerkz is “not trying to make something that can do everything for everyone.”
What BRUTAL changes for engine decisions
BRUTAL does not end the need to evaluate engines; it changes the fallback available to studios that dislike a vendor’s terms or technical direction. A source-available foundation means a team can build its own systems on top of the code and retain more options if a supplier changes course. Hall summarizes that benefit this way: “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.”
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That option comes with responsibility. A framework without a complete editor, renderer and content pipeline shifts work from the vendor to the game studio. The decision is practical rather than ideological: use the integrated engine when its convenience and breadth fit the project; consider BRUTAL when unusual requirements, performance goals or long-term control justify the additional engineering.
The practical reading of Hall’s announcement
Hall is criticizing a power imbalance, not declaring Unity or Unreal obsolete. BRUTAL is his working example of how a studio can reclaim lower-level control while avoiding royalties, and its use in RocketWerkz’s space simulation and Ludeon’s reported Waylith work shows that the framework is more than a manifesto. It remains a specialized, engineering-heavy choice whose value depends on whether a project benefits from owning more of its technology.
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