Learn GameDev with Unity, Unreal, GameMaker, Blender and C# Humble Bundle / News / June 11, 2025 / The Learn GameDev with Unity, Godot, Unreal, GameMaker, Blender and C# Humble Bundle from Zenva is now available. Each game engine comes with 5 or more courses covering all aspects of game development. This bundle joins the No-Code No-Problem Develop bundle and the Big Bang Unreal Unity and Godot bundle already live on Humble. As with most Humble Bundles, this one is organized into tiers: 1$ Tier Intro to Godot 4 Game Development (2025 Edition) Intro to the Game Development Industry Makes No Sense Tier Explore Audio for Godot 4 Games UV Mapping in Blender for Beginners UI/UX for Game Design 25$ Tier Godot 4 Mini-Projects (2025 Edition) Create a Micro Turn-Based RPG in Godot (2025 Edition) 3D Action-Adventure Game in Godot – Unit 1 – Characters Intro to Visual Shaders in Godot 4 Learn Game Optimization for Godot 4 Coin Collector Game – Godot Mobile Projects Unreal Engine Mini-Projects Intro to Unreal Engine Game Development Create a Racing Game in Unreal Engine The Complete Unreal Engine C++ Course – Build an FPS Create a Turn-Based Mini RPG in Unreal Engine Build a 2.5D Farming RPG with Unreal Engine Intro to Game Development with Unity Unity Mini-Projects – C# Fundamentals Explore Game Optimization in Unity 6 Intro to ECS for Unity 6 Build an Arcade Kart Racing Game in Unity Construct a Mobile Physics Game in Unity Intro to Particle Systems for Unity Games Intro to Game Development with GameMaker Create a Complete 2D Action RPG in GameMaker Build a Real-Time Strategy Mini-Game with GameMaker Develop an Idle Clicker from Scratch in GameMaker Make a Mini Turn-Based RPG from Scratch in GameMaker The Comprehensive Introduction to C# Programming Build a Complete Mini 2D Game Engine with C# Learn 3D Modeling with Blender from Scratch Intro to Rigging Models in Blender MagicaVoxel for Beginners – Create Voxel Game Assets Prompt Engineering for Game Developers You can learn more about the Learn GameDev with Unity, Godot, Unreal, GameMaker, Blender and C# Humble Bundle in the video below. Using links on this page to purchase the bundle helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do!)

CryEngine, for a time, stood as one of the most exciting game engines available, consistently pushing the boundaries of what was graphically possible on PC hardware. Titles like the original Crysis were often cited as benchmarks, demanding top-tier systems to truly shine, yet delivering stunning visuals that even today hold up remarkably well. For years, CryEngine was a significant player, underpinning a number of high-profile games that helped establish Crytek’s reputation. To this day the mean “But can it run Far Cry” its still alive and well. However, the engine’s journey hasn’t been without its twists and turns. Ubisoft, for instance, licensed CryEngine when they acquired the Far Cry IP, which later became the basis of their in-house Dunia engine. Perhaps the most notable shift came when Amazon licensed the engine, rebranding it as Lumberyard and eventually evolving it into the open-source O3DE (Open 3D Engine). At this point O3DE and CryEngine are very different engines, but based off a common core. Meanwhile, Crytek themselves continued to use CryEngine for various titles, including the Crysis series, Ryse: Son of Rome, and more recently, popular multiplayer games like Hunt: Showdown. A number of 3rd party developers have made use of CryEngine too, such as Star Citizen (now on lumberyard), Prey (2017), a personal favourite MechWarrior Online and most recently the critically acclaimed Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Despite these recent released games, the future of CryEngine for developers is much muddier. In 2022, Crytek announced a new version of Crysis in the works, only to put it on hold, accompanied by layoffs of 15% of their workforce. While Crytek’s CEO has stated a continued commitment to developing CryEngine, particularly for Hunt: Showdown, their efforts seem focused internally. CryEngine 5.7 LTS, released in April 2022 was the last update, leading to speculation among the community. Even though Crytek announced CryEngine 5.11 for the Hunt games, it was never publicly released. Crytek have stated on their discord server that the 5.7 LTS version will be the final public release of the 5.x branch. Key Links Crytek Press Release About CryEngine 5.11 Crytek Layoffs Announcement Tweet So, where does that leave CryEngine? It’s clear that Crytek is still actively developing the engine, primarily for their own titles like Hunt: Showdown. However, the public release cycle and the broader availability to third-party developers seem to be in flux. Whether CryEngine can reclaim its former prominence as a widely adopted engine beyond Crytek’s own titles remains an open question, and only time will tell what the future holds for this once-groundbreaking technology. You can learn more about the past, present and future of CryEngine in the video below.

Two Unreal & Unity Asset Bundles / News / June 14, 2025 / There are a pair of asset bundles for game developers on Gumroad from Leartes, the Summertime Unreal Engine Assets Bundle and the Summertime Unity Assets Bundle. Make sure you use code S60 at checkout to drop the price from $99 to $39! As you can see from the video below with assets running in the Godot game engine, the assets can easily be exported to other game engines (especially from the Unreal Engine bundle) and there are a number of handy guides below. Summertime Unreal Asset Bundle Contents: Environments: Dark Medieval Environment Megapack Modular English Mansion Environment Demonic Village Environment Stylized Wild West Environment Haunted Prison Environment Medieval Village Environment Forgotten Echoes Environment Desert Planet Environment Fire Watch Tower Environment Medieval Russian Village Environment Oriental Building Environment Horror Mansion (Abandoned Grand Mansion, Exterior + Interior, Modular) Madrid Street Environment Bowling Alley Stylized Countryside English Cottage Interior Stylized Eastern Province Environment Tools and Other Assets: Ultimate Lighting and Camera Tool (ULCT, Unreal Engine Plugin) Ultimate Level Art Tool Cosmos 50% Discount Coupon Cosmos One month Subscription SFX Character Movement SFX Cyberpunk Guns Cosmos Rocket Plugin (Drag and Drop to Unreal Engine Plugin) VFX Explosion VFX Blood SUV 04 SUV 01 Driveable / Animated / Realistic Summer Time Unity Asset Bundle Contents: Environments: Dark Medieval Village Environment Megapack (Modular with Full Interiors) Modular English Mansion Environment Demonic Village Environment Medieval Village Environment / Camelot Fire Watch Tower Environment Abandoned Horror Mansion Interior Bowling Alley Environment Stylized Countryside Spanish Cottage Environment Chinese Alley Environment Tortuga Lighthouse Island Ramen Restaurant Environment Stylized Lowpoly Cyberpunk City Stylized Japanese Shrine Environment French Quarter Street Environment Will’s Room Environment Witch Village Environment Office Corridor Environment Neptune’s Roman Bath Vintage Bar Interior Environment Tools and Other Assets: Cosmos 50% Discount Coupon Cosmos One month Subscription SFX Character Movement SFX Cyberpunk Guns If you are looking at using the Unreal or Unity assets in another game engine, be sure to check out the following conversion guides: You can learn more about the Unity and Unreal Engine asset bundles in the video below. Once again, be sure to use the code S60 at checkout. Using links on this page helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do!)

Who Could Buy Unity? / News / June 7, 2025 / Business, Unity Earlier this week 80.lv ran the incredibly misleading (some could say click-baity) article Analyst Suggests Apple Might be Considering Buying Unity After Legal Defeat to Epic Games. Might is doing some heavy lifting there as there is no actual evidence that Apple or any other company are currently looking to purchase Unity Technologies. That said, it is an interesting topic as a pure thought exercise. So today we are going to discuss the companies that could be potential suitors for Unity. Unity The obvious place to start is with Unity Technologies, which is to say they can simply stay an independent organization. While they are not profitable, their financial situation has been trending in a positive direction of late and they have sufficient cash and resources to stay independent for the foreseeable future. Should things get bad at Unity, it is possible one of their largest investors (Silver Lake Group, Vanguard Group, Sequoia Capital, Black Rock, etc) could take the company private again. Put simply, Unity does not need to be purchased and things can be kept as they are. Apple The original premise of this article is that Apple should buy Unity. Reasons why Apple should buy Unity: Apple and Unity have a long history, with Unity having been originally a Mac exclusive application and it has always supported Apple platforms Unity is by far the most used application for creating games on the Apple App Store Unity Grow products (ads, user acquisitions, analytics, etc) could have good synergy with Apples products Apple could prevent a potential future rival, especially around 3rd party app stores Reasons why Apple won’t buy Unity: Apple has never made a purchase anywhere near the size of Unity. Their largest acquisition to date (Beats) would be 1/4 to 1/5 the size of acquiring Unity Apple has never really gotten involved in gaming beyond small initiatives in the past Apple mostly grows in-house over acquisition and more acquisitions are subsumed into other Apple products, Unity is not a good fit here Amazon Amazon have heaps of cash and aren’t afraid to use it such as acquiring MGM, Whole Foods, Twitch and many more companies over the years. They also have several gaming-oriented interests and have made an attempt (that failed badly) to become a major game developer in the past. Reasons why Amazon should buy Unity: Amazon tried to enter gaming in a big way once already with the licensing of CryEngine to create Lumberyard (now O3DE) and buying up or forming several game studios. Unity would provide a much larger and more established foothold should they wish to buy their way in Amazon web services could be a good compliment to Unity’s server side offerings, while Unity’s Grow division could be a good fit for Amazon platforms Integration with their gaming platforms (Twitch, Luna, etc) Reasons why Amazon won’t buy Unity: Their last attempt into game development was a massive failure and much of it was rumored to be a culture problem Tencent Tencent have invested HEAVILY into the world of gaming (Ubisoft, Epic Games, Riot Games, Supercell, Snap, Funcom, Activision Blizzard, From Software, etc) and aren’t afraid of throwing money around, so Unity could be a good fit in that portfolio. That said recent political climate changes would render this acquisition very unlikely. Reasons why Tencent should buy Unity: Tencent have a presence across the entire gaming industry and already have a minority stake in Epic Games (Unreal Engine). This would more or less give them a controlling influence over two of the biggest players in the space Access to or ownership of Unity’s recently created China Joint Venture Integration with Tencents other holdings like WeChat or Snap might provide some synergies Reasons why Tencent won’t buy Unity: Not a snowballs chance in hell that regulators allow this acquisition to happen, from antitrust issues of owning stakes in both Unity and Unreal Engine, to just more broad geopolitical issues in the modern world Microsoft Microsoft are heavily invested in two areas that overlap with Unity, gaming and software development tools. On paper they might appear to be the perfect suitor for Unity and they have the cash hoard to make such a purchase with ease. Reasons why Microsoft should buy Unity: Unlike Apple, Microsoft has long been a proponent of growth via acquisition with some of their pillar products coming in the form of acquisitions. They also do not shy away from huge dollar purchases such as Activision Blizzard (69B), LinkedIn (26B), Nuance (20B), Skype (8.5B), ZeniMax (7.5B), GitHub (7.5B), Nokia (7B), Mojang[Minecraft] (2.5B) Microsoft have a long history of leveraging their development tools to grow their platforms Microsoft gaming studios/relationships/holdings such as XBox, Game Pass/PC Gaming, DirectX, Havok, etc. could benefit from a tighter relationship with Unity Like Amazon, Microsoft server-side services (Azure) could be used to power Unity Grow services Reasons why Microsoft won’t buy Unity: Microsoft only just finished their acquisition of Activision and it was an arduous and nearly doomed process. Buying another company in the gaming space might be a step too far for regulators While Microsoft doesn’t mind spending huge money on acquisitions, they also don’t mind killing those companies off after (Nokia? Skype?), especially if there is a market downturn like we are experiencing now AppLovin If there is a company that is most likely to buy Unity, and that would synergize best with Unity products, it’s AppLovin. In broad strokes, AppLovin, IronSource and Unity (Grow) are all in the same business. On top of that many of AppLovin’s biggest customers and products are directly tied to the Unity ecosystem. In fact, Unity and AppLovin are such a good fit that AppLovin attempted to buy Unity for nearly $20B back in 2022, when Unity instead pursued it’s doomed merger with IronSource. So, why would it make sense for AppLovin to buy Unity now? Well, these two 5 year stock performance charts more or less tell the entire story: It becomes crystal clear from that fateful date in August of 2022 which company has performed better and right now AppLovin is absolutely flush with cash. If there is a company that makes sense to acquire Unity, it’s AppLovin. Of course now that Unity owns IronSource, there are certainly questions of regulatory approval if this would even be allowed. Once again, this entire exercise is simply a thought exercise, just for fun. There is no public available news that ANYONE are looking to acquire Unity, nor that Unity is looking to be acquired. You can learn more about my thoughts on the matter in the video below.

Godot 4.5 Dev5 Released / News / June 5, 2025 / Godot, Release We have a new Dev release of the open-source Godot Game Engine, Godot 4.5 Dev5. This release is theoretically going to be the last dev release as we move on to a beta schedule and more or less represents the final new features we can expect to see in Godot 4.5. We have covered all the previous new released: Dev1, Dev2, Dev3 and Dev4 if you are looking for other features to expect in the upcoming Godot 4.5 release. There is also a new Godot Engine asset bundle showcased in the video, the Godot StarNova Bundle on Gumroad but be sure to use the code SN40 at checkout to save $40 off! Highlight new features of the Godot 4.5 dev5 release include: Native visionOS Support: Introduces official platform integration for visionOS, enabling users to connect with the Godot XR community. GDScript Abstract Classes: Allows the creation of abstract classes using the abstract keyword. Shader Baker: An optional feature that significantly speeds up shader compilation, particularly for Apple devices and D3D12. WebAssembly SIMD Support: Integrated by default for web builds, enabling parallel processing in single-threaded environments. Inline Color Pickers: Displays the color represented by a variable directly within the script editor. SMAA 1x: Now a full engine feature giving another screen space anti aliasing option. Bent Normal Maps: Improve specular occlusion and indirect lighting over traditional normal maps. Key Links Godot 4.5 Dev5 Interactive Change Log You can learn more about the Godot 4.5 Dev5 release in the video below.

The State of Unreal 2025 / News / June 3, 2025 / Unreal Epic Games State of Unreal 2025 is currently underway in Florida and the keynote has just concluded. There was game footage from several upcoming games including perhaps the highest profile upcoming Unreal Engine 5 release, the Witcher 4. Of the most interest to game developers however are the following announcements: Unreal Engine 5.6 Unreal Engine 5.6 is now available for download. It was first released in preview format back in May and adds several performance improvements, animation improvements and more. More details of the Unreal Engine 5.6 release are available here and we should have coverage up shortly. MetaHuman Now Integrated into Unreal Engine 5.6 Epic’s advanced character creation software MetaHumans is now integrated directly into UE 5.6, running in a hybrid local and remote server model. MetaHumans also received several new features and capabilities. Another key announcement is that MetaHuman content is now integrated on the Fab marketplace. Additionally, MetaHuman licensing has been changed enabling developers using all engines, not just Unreal Engine, to make use of them. Epic Game Store Announcements There were also several announcements for developers revolving around changes to revenue share, incentives as well as the ability to create an online presence/store via WebStores. Many of these changes were announced back in May if you are looking for more details. We have condensed the State of Unreal 2025 keynote from 2 hours down to under 15 minutes focusing on the details of most interest to game developers in the video below.

Unreal Engine 5.6 Released / News / June 4, 2025 / Release, Unreal Announced yesterday at the State of Unreal Unreal Engine has now been released. Released in preview back in the middle of May UE 5.6 adds a ton of new features to the popular game engine, with the highlight of this release being MetaHumans being integrated directly into the engine. In addition the terms of use for MetaHumans have been updated so that it is permissible to use characters in all game engines, not just Unreal. There are also several bundles running right now for Unreal Engine developers, linked below in the Key Links category. Highlights of the Unreal Engine 5.6 release include: Powerful, high-fidelity 60 FPS open worlds: Enhanced capabilities for creating large, detailed game worlds that run smoothly at 60 frames per second. Lots of focus on rendering optimizations to cut down on some of the performance issues plaguing Unreal lately. Accelerated animation authoring: Tools and workflows that speed up the process of creating and implementing animations. A large number of modelling and animation tools are being brought into Unreal and soon may not require an external DCC for many actions. In-engine MetaHuman creation: The ability to create and customize realistic digital humans directly within the Unreal Engine editor. As mentioned earlier licensing terms have also been updated so MetaHumans can be used in other game engines. Simplified UX/UI experience: Improvements to the user interface and user experience, making the engine easier and more intuitive to use. These changes can be toggled off if you prefer the earlier UI. Improved developer iteration: Faster build times and streamlined processes to help developers see their changes and test their projects more quickly. Faster worldbuilding with procedural tools: Advanced procedural content generation tools that enable quicker creation of complex game environments. This includes static geometry streaming as well as Nanite foliage support. Enhanced cinematic & performance capture workflows: Upgrades to the tools used for creating cinematics and capturing performances, leading to higher quality results. Key Links Unreal Engine 5.6 Blog Unreal Engine 5.6 Release Notes Space Nova Unreal Bundle (Use code SN70) Star Nova Unreal Bundle (Use Code SN40) Big Bang Unreal & Unity Humble Bundle You can learn more about the Unreal Engine 5.6 release in the video below. Using the links above to purchase bundles helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do!)

There is a new Humble Bundle of interest to game developers, the Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle. This massive bundle contains a ton of 3D environments, props, SFX and characters for Unreal, Unity and a few for Godot as well. You can also transfer assets from one game engine to another using the guides we provide below. In addition to this new Humble Bundle there are several other game asset bundles for these game engine by Leartes running over on GumRoad: Space Nova Unreal Bundle (Use code SN70) Star Nova Unreal Bundle (Use Code SN40) Unity Space Nova Bundle (Use Code SN70) Unity Star Nova Bundle (Use Code SN40) Godot Star Nova Bundle (Use Code SN40) The Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle is organized into the following tiers: 1$ Tier Military Boat SFX CyberpunkZBrush: Beginner to Advanced Course on Three MiniaturesVFX Smoke (Unreal Engine)Water VFX (Unreal Engine)Object Distribution Tool (Unreal Engine)500+ Fantasy IconsCosmos One Month Free SubscriptionCosmos 50% Discount CodeMedian Tier Ultimate Lighting and Camera Tool ( ULCT ) Feudal Japanese CastleStylized Desert BazaarStylized Medieval HouseStylized Magical Haunted VillageThe Gas StationFantasy Mystic VillageMilitary Barriers PackSUV 02 DriveableSFX WinterVFX Dust (Unreal Engine)Substance 3D Painter: A Complete Guide for BeginnersSFX 3 Police Station (SFX)Modeling TutorialPost Apocalyptic Melee Weapons VOL.2Material Assignment Tool (Unreal Engine)Police Character / NPC (Unreal Engine)1950s Mafia Character / NPC / RiggedCyberpunk Holograms / Neon Set ( Set of 33 Holograms )Cyberpunk Street Lights (Unreal Engine)Driveable / Animated Retro Cyberpunk Hover Car 0220$ Tier Miami Club Megapack Ancient Cathedral EnvironmentThe Grand Egyptian TempleThe Carnival EnvironmentUnderwater Sunken ShipHaunted HouseThe Fantastic HillsThe Ancient Library EnvironmentPirate Tavern EnvironmentChinese Alley EnvironmentUltimate Level Art Tool – ULATThe Rally Point EnvironmentJapanese TempleFeudal Japan WarroomStylized House Along RiverModular Stylized Cyberpunk StreetStylized Ice Dragon VillageStylized Perched ChurchStylized Desert MineStylized Sci-Fi Modern CityRetropunk Saloon Environment (Unreal Engine)Cyberpunk Kyiv Street EnvironmentChurch / Cathedral InteriorGothic Street1950s BusinessmanCyberpunk Billboards / Signs Set / 35 Unique Pieces ( Cyberpunk Billboards )Military Exterior PackClassic Sport Car 01Classic Car 02Classic Car 03SUV 03 DriveableFPS 4K Western Guns – VOL.3FPS 4K Custom Modern Handguns – VOL.4SFX Cyberpunk GunsVFX Explosion (Unreal Engine)Creating an Industrial Concept Art in Blender / PhotoshopCreating Abandoned Church 3D Environment in Unreal Engine 5Unreal Engine 5, Blender – Creating a Classroom EnvironmentSFX 1 Warzone (SFX)SFX 2 Soulslike (SFX)VFX 1 Warzone (VFX)Post Apocalyptic Melee Weapons VOL.1FPS 4K Custom Modern Shotguns – VOL.2FPS 4K Western Guns – VOL.2 (Unreal Engine)Stable EnvironmentIf you are looking at using the Unreal or Unity assets in another game engine, be sure to check out the following conversion guides: You can learn more about the Big Bang Unreal & Unity (and Godot) Asset Humble Bundle in the video below. Using links on this page helps support GFS (and thank you very much if you do!)

Cozy Games Free & Open-Source Godot Add-Ons / News, Resources / May 31, 2025 / Add-On, Godot The folks over at Cozy Cube Games have provided a GitHub repository that offers a fantastic collection of tools to enhance your Godot game development workflow. Here’s a look at 14 of the add-ons you can find there, all of which are available under the MIT open-source license and implemented using 100% GDScript. The repository consists of the following free add-ons for the Godot game engine: area_lights: Enhances lighting capabilities within your scenes. control_proxies: doodle_texture:  Create textures directly in Godot by doodling or sketching, perfect for prototyping and “sticky notes”. editor_relays: This add-on allows you to manage the Godot Editor from your application at run-time. gizmo_presets: Gain precise control over the visibility of Gizmos in Godot. Show/hide them all, or create and toggle your own custom presets. light_shafts: Add breathtaking volumetric light scattering effects, often known as “god rays,” to your scenes. lines_and_trails_3d: Easily create and manage dynamic 3D lines and trail effects for projectiles, movement paths, and more. manual_multimesh: Optimize your scenes by gaining more direct control over MultiMeshInstances, perfect for rendering many similar meshes efficiently. nine_patch_mesh: Create scalable 3D nine-patch meshes, ideal for flexible UI elements or environment pieces with repeating borders and centers. parallel_scene_views: Boost your productivity by viewing and interacting with multiple scene views simultaneously within the editor. preview_2d: Seamlessly integrate 2D and 3D workflows by adding a button to preview your 2D viewport directly from a 3D scene. procedural_texture_baker: Generate and bake unique procedural textures directly within Godot, saving time and adding variety. tile_path_3d: Effortlessly instance 3D objects along a spline path. Perfect for creating paths, roads, fences, and other repeating environmental details. transform_clusters: Once again, not really sure the use case on this one Key Links Cozy Cube Games Godot Add-Ons GitHub Repository Cozy Cube Games Homepage You can learn more about the Cozy Cube Games add-ons for the Godot game engine as well as see many of them in action in the video below.

GameFromScratch.com Top Code Editors & IDEs in 2025 The following is a round-up of popular and still in development tools for game programmers, specifically code editors, terminal based editors, IDEs and modern AI assisted tools. If you are looking for a new editor hopefully you will find it here. We go into slightly more depth with each tool The post Top Code Editors & IDEs in 2025 appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.

There is another game artists focused Humble Bundle, joining yesterday’s 3D Artists Tools & Brushes Bundle, this one is the Flipped Normals Extreme Add-Ons Bundle for Blender & ZBrush. This is a collection of add-ons for both Blender and Brush. It is important to note the following: Free lifetime updates are not included in the bundle purchase. All creators have included coupon codes in the bundle, so you can purchase directly from their shop at a discounted price to receive updates and full support. As with most Humble Bundles, the Flipped Normals Extreme Add-Ons Bundle for Blender & ZBrush is organized into the following tiers: 10$ Tier Fit Curve Blendshop – Layer-Based Compositing / Color Grading Tool – Blender 4.0+ Geo Sign 1.0 – Sign Generator Blender Addon Power Maps ZBrush Plugin Model Enhancer – ZBrush Plugin 20$ Tier Wrap Gen – Generate Fully Customisable Wraps (Blender 4.0+) Fit Lattice Real Cloud 1.0 – Cloud Creator / Blender Addon + 200 VDB Assets Power Shapes ZBrush Plugin ZBrush – Mask & Delete Plugin 30$ Tier Lazy VFX 1.0 – VDB Assets & Blender Addon Better Lighting V2 – Light Presets & Gobos Library Fluid Kit – Water Generator & Water Assets Library Lazy Forest V2 – Forest Generator Addon + Trees & Plants Library Physical Starlight And Atmosphere Physical Celestial Objects – Procedural Planets Physical Open Waters Spline Brush – Turn Splines into Brush Strokes Light Wrangler: Essential Lighting Add-On For Blender Quad Maker Power Modeler ZBrush Plugin Easy Mesh ZBrush Plugin Power Primitives ZBrush Plugin Power Text Brush Maker ZBrush Plugin Real-time Hair ZBrush Plugin Torn Pro – ZBrush Plugin UV-Pro Mastering UV Unwrapping – ZBrush Plugin ARMORED MIRROR Zbrush Plugin Geo-Scatter 5.5 Using links on this page to purchase the bundle helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do!). You can access the  3D Artists Tools & Brushes Bundle here and the Flipped Normals Extreme Add-Ons Bundle for Blender & ZBrush here. If you’d like to see coverage of a specific asset in action in video form please do let me know on the GFS discord server.

Murder Engine – C# ECS 2D Game Engine / News / May 27, 2025 / C#, Engine The Murder Engine is a C# powered, open-source, 2D game engine built on top of FNA (and thus XNA) built around ECS or the Entity Component System. The Murder engine is described succinctly as: This is the source for Murder Engine, a pixel art ECS game engine built on top of FNA. 🚧👷 Warning Proceed at your own risk. This is an in-development engine, which is another way of saying that it will change quite a lot. We do our best to keep release branches stable, but expect a lot of breaking changes and things that are not perfect (yet!). It cleanly separates your game logic from the level editor (which is part of the game project) and the level editor has a surprisingly robust number of tools. This includes a full map editor, via conversation system, ways to define entity composition and manage game data and much more. Projects are ultimately created using the C# programming language and Microsoft Visual Studio 2022, so obviously Windows is required. The engine is open-source under the MIT license. It is also home to several sub projects such as bang – the C# entity component system framework as well as gum – the language for creating branching dialogs that is embedded in the editor. One thing this engine certainly lacks however is documentation. There is a minimal amount of reference materials available but for the most part you will have to puzzle things out on your own. Thankfully there are two projects to get you started, the former Ludum Dare winner Neo City Express as well as the Hello Murder starter project. When starting out with either project make sure you clone the repository recursively. Key Links Murder Engine GitHub Repository Neo City Express Repository Hello Murder Repository Project Documentation Discord Server You can learn more about the awesome but poorly named Murder engine in the video below.

Audio is such an important component of any game and 3D audio in 3D games adds massively to immersion. Today we are going to look at two different Godot add-ons that add Audio Occlusion capabilities to the Godot game engine. The first solution is VASTLY easier to use; the aptly named Godot Audio Occlusion Plugin that’s part of the Audio Arsenal bundle by Ovani Sounds. The other is part of the free and open-source Giga Audio plugin, which also provides two different 3D area audio zones. The Ovani Godot Audio Occlusion Plugin is described as: The Audio Occlusion Plugin for Godot makes sounds in your game behave more realistically. When a sound is behind a wall, door, or obstacle, this plugin will automatically make it sound muffled or filtered—just like it would in real life. It works by attaching an AudioOccluder (a Node3D) to any AudioStreamPlayer3D in your scene. The plugin calculates how sound would travel through the environment and adjusts the audio in real time, depending on what’s between the source and the listener. To do this, it simplifies your world into a voxel grid—a 3D block-based map—and simulates how sound waves move through it. You can even preview how the plugin sees your world by enabling Voxel Preview in the Inspector (after activating the included plugin.gd). You can easily customize settings like: Range Voxel resolution Collision mask Detection margin The Giga Audio plugin is described as: Audio Occlusion, Audio Areas, and Audio Depth Areas for your project. …yeah, slightly less verbose description there. 😉 You will find that as a general trend, the Giga Audio plugin has less documentation and no samples to get you up and going. Don’t worry though, we have that process mostly covered in the video below. Key Links Audio Arsenal bundle by Ovani Sounds Ovani Godot Audio Plugin Giga Audio GitHub Repository Giga Audio YouTube Video Using the links on this page to purchase the bundle helps support GFS and thanks so much if you do! You can learn more about using both of the Godot 4.x audio occlusion add-ons in the video below.

All the way back in Blender 2.79 the Blender Foundation made the decision to remove the integrated game engine. Several projects continue adding game engine support to Blender and the one that most adhered to the original BGE vision is the Range Engine (we first looked at in 2022). Since then there have been several releases to the Range Engine. Features of the Range Engine: POWERFUL MODELLING TOOLS Based on Blender, With Range Engine you can Model and Sculpt you own Assets, Make Materials and Textures, create high detailed Animations And build breathtaking levels with advanced tools and modifiers. BEAUTIFUL MATERIALS Make amazing environments with beautiful PBR materials, you can use your imagination to make advanced materials with Shader Nodes Editor. CODE WITH PYTHON OR VISUAL LANGUAGE Range Engine makes coding looks easy, you can code with Python 3.10 or make visual scripting with Visual Language, you can also use both ways together! (Range Nodes Coming Soon) PUBLISHING PROJECTS Of course you want to show to everyone the amazing work you did, In Range Engine you can export and publish your game with safety, optimization and With no Fees and Licensing Problems! Key Links Range Engine Homepage Range Engine Discord Ovani Audio Arsenal Bundle Link Spyro Inspired Range Engine Demo Scene from Video Other Blender Game Engines UPBGE Armory 3D Engine You can learn more about the Range Engine for Blender in the video below.

Bevy ECS in Godot Engine / News / May 22, 2025 / Godot, Rust The Bevy game engine is an open-source data driven ECS based game engine using the Rust programming language that lacks an editor. The Godot game engine is the most popular open-source project with a robust set of tools and an integrated editor. So what happens if you add Rust and ECS from Bevy to the Godot game engine? That is exactly what these two GDExtension based open-source projects do, they bring Bevy to Godot. godot-bevy Godot-Bevy is a Rust library that brings Bevy’s powerful Entity Component System (ECS) to the versatile Godot Game Engine. Use Bevy’s ergonomic and high-performance Rust ECS within your Godot projects to get the best of both worlds. Features Seamlessly integrate Bevy ECS in Godot 4 projects Use Bevy systems to control Godot nodes Spawn Godot scenes from Bevy Maintain clean separation between ECS logic and Godot’s scene tree Leverage the full power of Bevy’s Rust-based ECS while using Godot’s editor and rendering capabilities Systems can be scheduled for the visual or physics frame bevy_godot4 Bring the design power of Bevy’s ECS to the mature engine capabilities of Godot 4. At it’s core, this crate is just a godot Node that stores a Bevy App that you add as an autoload in your Godot project. However, this library also provides utilities to be able to work with Godot nodes from within the Bevy framework. The architecture in this crate is based on bevy_godot, a similar crate for working with Godot 3 and GDNative. In the video below we show you how to get started with both of these Bevy -> Godot extensions, including a few install hiccups you may encounter along the way.

Every other Tuesday we get an Unreal Engine Fab marketplace giveaway, and this Tuesday is no exception (well, except the fact I’m reporting this late and it’s actually Wednesday, sorry about that…). You can get three free game development assets during the next two week for Unreal (with two of the assets also being available for Unity!) as well as one free asset at the personal tier. If you are using a different game engine or tool, we have guides below that instruct you on how to export from Unreal Engine to other engines such as Godot, Blender or Unity for example. These assets are available free from May 20th to June 3rd and are yours to keep forever once “purchased”. This Month’s free assets include: In addition to these assets, there is also the free Polar Facility environment at the personal tier. There are also a pair of Unreal Engine asset bundles running on Gumroad: The SpaceNova Unreal Engine Bundle (Use Code SN70 at checkout for $70 off) The StarNova Unreal Engine Bundle (Use Code SN40 at checkout for $40 off) In addition to the Unreal Engine bundles, there are Godot and Unity versions as well (with the same SN40 and SN70 discount codes): StarNova for Unity Bundle SpaceNova for Unity Bundle StarNova for Godot Bundle Using the above Gumroad links to buy the bundle helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do!) If you are interested in getting these assets into other game engines, check out our various guides available here: You can see all of these assets in action in the video below.

Microsoft have just made a major announcement that will shake the business model of popular AI based code editors Cursor and Windsurf. Both of these companies are built around forks of Visual Studio Code that build AI tooling “into the bones”. Microsoft have just announced they are open sourcing GitHub Copilot Chat Extension and will be building the functionality into the core of Visual Studio Code. Details from the Visual Studio Code announcement: We believe that the future of code editors should be open and powered by AI. For the last decade, VS Code has been one of the most successful OSS projects on GitHub. We are grateful for our vibrant community of contributors and users who choose VS Code because it is open source. As AI becomes core to the developer experience in VS Code, we intend to stay true to our founding development principles: open, collaborative, and community-driven. We will open source the code in the GitHub Copilot Chat extension under the MIT license, then carefully refactor the relevant components of the extension into VS Code core. This is the next and logical step for us in making VS Code an open source AI editor. It’s a reflection that AI-powered tools are core to how we write code; a reaffirmation of our belief that working in the open leads to a better product for our users and fosters a diverse ecosystem of extensions. Why open source now? Over the last few months, we’ve observed shifts in AI development that motivated us to transition our AI development in VS Code from closed to open source: Large language models have significantly improved, mitigating the need for “secret sauce” prompting strategies. The most popular and effective UX treatments for AI interactions are now common across editors. We want to enable the community to refine and build on these common UI elements by making them available in a stable, open codebase. An ecosystem of open source AI tools and VS Code extensions has emerged. We want to make it easier for these extension authors to build, debug, and test their extensions. This is especially challenging today without access to the source code in the Copilot Chat extension. We’ve gotten a lot of questions about the data that is collected by AI editors. Open sourcing the Copilot Chat extension enables you to see the data we collect, increasing transparency. Malicious actors are increasingly targeting AI developer tools. Throughout VS Code’s history as OSS, community issues and PRs have helped us find and fix security issues quickly. Next steps In the coming weeks, we will work to open source the code in the GitHub Copilot Chat extension and refactor AI features from the extension into VS Code core. Our core priorities remain intact: delivering great performance, powerful extensibility, and an intuitive, beautiful user interface. Open source works best when communities build around a stable, shared foundation. Thus, our goal is to make contributing AI features as simple as contributing to any part of VS Code. The stochastic nature of large language models makes it especially challenging to test AI features and prompt changes. To ease this, we will also make our prompt test infrastructure open source to ensure that community PRs can build and pass tests. In unrelated news, Microsoft also announced the open-sourcing of WSL or Windows Subsystem for Linux. You can learn more in the video below.

Today we are checking out the Go language powered game engine Ebitengine. In our recent rundown of game engines by programming language series I often received requests to cover the Go programming language. Truth of the matter is, outside of language bindings, there are very few Go-powered game engines, certainly not enough to make any kind of dedicated list. There is however the Ebitengine, by far the most popular choice, an open source 2D cross platform game engine. Details of Ebitengine: A dead simple 2D game engine for Go Ebitengine (formerly known as Ebiten) is an open-source game engine for the Go programming language. Ebitengine’s simple API allows you to quickly and easily develop 2D games that can be deployed across multiple platforms. Features: 2D Graphics (Geometry and color transformation by matrices, Various composition modes, Offscreen rendering, Text rendering, Automatic batches, Automatic texture atlas, Custom shaders) Input (Mouse, Keyboard, Gamepads, Touches) Audio (Ogg/Vorbis, MP3, WAV, PCM) Key Links Ebitengine Homepage Ebitengine GitHub Repository Documentation You can learn more about the dead simple, cross-platform, open-source 2D Go language powered game engine Ebitengine in the video below.

Unreal Engine 5.6 Preview Released / News / May 17, 2025 / Unreal A few weeks ahead of the State of Unreal at Unreal Fest 2025 Epic Games have released a new version of Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 5.6 Preview. This release finally adds MetaHuman integration, a host of animation improvements, an updated UI, performance improvements and more. Sadly the much anticipated new game templates didn’t make this release. There are also SpaceNova and StarNova Unreal Engine bundles running right now for Unreal Engine on Gumroad (use code SN70 and SN40 for massive discounts). There is also the 5K World Building Assets for Unreal Engine bundle over on Humble Bundle(learn more). Highlights of the Unreal Engine 5.6 release: Vast, high-fidelity open worlds with maximum performance, and consistent 60hz frame rates. The biggest and most powerful update yet to the animation authoring toolset. MetaHuman Creator is now available in-engine including blending and sculpting of MetaHuman bodies plus improved visual fidelity and new realtime workflows for MetaHuman Animator. Faster creation with Content browser 2.0 and the new Viewport toolbar layout. The ability to build expansive, high-fidelity worlds faster than ever with powerful procedural workflows Key Links Unreal Engine 5.6 Release Details Unreal Public Roadmap Level Up 5K World Building GameDev Assets Humble Bundle SpaceNova Bundle (Use Code SN70)  StarNova Bundle (Use Code SN40) You can learn more about the Unreal Engine 5.6 Preview in the video below.

Unity 6.2 Beta Released / News / May 15, 2025 / Coming approximately one month after the final release of Unity 6.1, Unity have just released Unity 6.2 Beta. This new beta doesn’t add a ton of new functionality, with the highlight features being the new LOD import system and World Space UI for UI toolkit. The biggest change by far in this release is the reworking of their AI tools, with Muse being retired and Sentis being renamed with the entire thing being rebranded as Unity AI. Additionally, there are several game development bundles of interest to Unity developers that just launched. There are two new Unity bundles from Leartes on Gumroad, the 15 environments SpaceNova Bundle (use code SN70 for an additional $70 off) as well as the 5 environment StarNova bundle (use code SN40 for $40 off). There is also the Must Have New Assets MegaBundle on the Unity Asset Store. Details of the new Unity AI: Unity AI consists of three main components: Assistant – A contextual helper that answers questions about your project, generates pre-compiled code, and can execute agentic actions like batch renaming files or placing multiple objects in a scene. Drag project assets into prompts or query selected console errors. Replaces Muse Chat. Generators – Improved tools for creating sprites, textures, animations, and new sound generation capabilities. Generators publish directly into supported Unity assets for a seamless workflow. Replaces Muse Sprite, Texture, and Animate. Inference Engine – Inference Engine continues to focus on local AI model inference performance gains for unique runtime experiences. Renaming Sentis to Inference Engine. Interested in trying Unity AI? Here’s what you need to know: In-Editor installation – Install Unity AI through the “AI” button at the top of the Editor after downloading Unity 6.2 Beta. Free during Unity 6.2 beta – All users who install Unity AI will receive free Unity Points to try the features. Free points will expire at the end of the beta, when Unity AI will transition to a paid Unity Points model. Data usage and privacy – Unity AI uses your provided “Content Data” to execute AI model inferences. You can opt out of Content Data sharing for AI model training through the Unity Dashboard. (Coming in June during Unity 6.2 beta) I intended to go hands-on with the new Unity AI features in more depth in a follow-up article. Key Links Unity 6.2 Beta Announcement Must Have New Assets MegaBundle on the Unity Asset Store SpaceNova Bundle (Use code SN70) StarNova bundle (Use Code SN40) You can learn more about the Unity 6.2 beta release and about the three Unity related bundles in the video below. Purchasing bundles via links on this page helps support GFS (and thanks very much if you do!).