RimWorld drops Unity for its own in-house engine, says your saves still work, so do most mods, and the whole thing runs twice as fast
RimWorld will transition from Unity to Waylith Engine, a new in-house engine built by Ludeon Studios, with update 1.7. The game will maintain identical visuals and gameplay while achieving significant performance improvements.
Ludeon reports performance gains of 2-4x across the board. A late-game colony test showed 2.2x faster performance, while a 1,500-mod modpack load time dropped from 14 minutes to 6 minutes. The update promises faster startup, game load times, map generation, world generation, and improved ticks-per-second performance.
Backward compatibility has been prioritized throughout the transition. Savegames from version 1.6 will load in 1.7, and players can revert to previous versions without losing their saves. Most mods remain compatible with the new engine despite the significant technical shift.
Update 1.7 is currently available on the unstable beta branch for testing. This in-house engine development represents a major undertaking by Ludeon Studios, demonstrating long-term commitment to optimizing and sustaining their sci-fi colony management game.