Game Dev Weekly: Key Releases, Engine Updates, and Technical Insights
Death Stranding 2 launched on Steam with a peak of 55,000 concurrent players and 96% positive reviews, surpassing the first game. Crimson Desert sold 2 million copies within 16 hours of release—developers are already gathering feedback for improvements. No, I'm not a Human sold 1 million copies with bonuses for fans, while Lords of the Fallen sold 2.5 million, recouping costs by February 2026 and securing $19 million for a sequel.
Legal Battles and Corporate Changes
A court ordered Krafton to reinstate fired CEO Ted Gill as head of Unknown Worlds and restore his control over Subnautica 2 after nine months of disputes. Ubisoft is shutting down development at Red Storm Entertainment, transitioning the studio to support roles and laying off over 100 employees as part of restructuring. Unity introduced official Steam support, though the goals of this move remain unclear.
Tool Updates: Unity 6.4, Blender 5.1, and DLSS 5
Unity 6.4 made ECS a core package, moving closer to integration with CoreCLR; for the web, they released Unity Studio for asset management. Blender 5.1 focuses on performance, workflow updates in key tools, and adding a Raycast node.
NVIDIA unveiled DLSS 5 with a distilled AI model approach, emphasizing photorealistic lighting through neural networks.
Slug under MIT: GPU font rendering from Bézier curves, developed in 2016, is now open-source—reference vertex and pixel shaders are available in the repository.
Engine Technical Issues: Examples from Cities: Skylines II
The head of Colossal Order highlighted key issues with Unity:
- Instability of experimental features
- Lack of HDRP shaders for basic functions
- No support for long-running jobs in ECS
The team chose a non-LTS version with experiments, leading to problems—likely due to insufficient research.
Interview Insights: From Motion Capture to Destructible Worlds
In Cronos The New Dawn, actress Kelly Burke described the mocap challenges for the Traveler: a rigid neck, no face, and immense weight requiring custom physics. Teardown developer Dennis Gustafsson broke down multiplayer and voxel destruction—full world destructibility complicates network synchronization.
In mobile game Sunrise Village, AI has generated content for a year without detection, helping avoid shutdown; InnoGames predicts standardization.
Unity tests outside the editor: Running via .NET test runner speeds things up 10x, bypassing Unity overhead.
Content Production and VFX
Capsule Studio revealed their premium trailer pipeline: focus on realistic character animation, evolution of VFX/CGI over years. Kirill Muslimov in Corrupted Greatsword combined metal and organic elements, enhancing with textures and lighting for a realistic prop look.
Pitching to Xbox: Guy Richards from ID@Xbox emphasizes playtests, fanbase, and experience—as seen in Over The Top (200k copies in 2 weeks).
Physics and Programming
Rigid Body Rotation (Part 2) details the rigid body component for rotation in custom physics systems. An article on C++ generalizations covers object theory, identity (Socrates remains Socrates through changes), and why plus-objects are structured as they are.
Key Takeaways
- DLSS 5 enhances AI for lighting; Slug MIT opens GPU font rendering from Bézier.
- Unity 6.4 integrates ECS as core; Blender 5.1 adds Raycast and optimizes performance.
- Unity tests via .NET offer 10x speedup; mocap challenges for heavy characters require custom physics.
- Sales: Crimson Desert (2M), Lords of the Fallen (2.5M)—recoup and sequel funding.
- Unity non-LTS pitfalls: instability, missing ECS jobs—a lesson for engine choice.
— Editorial Team
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