RimWorld Migrating From Unity to In-House Waylith Engine in Update 1.7

Ludeon Studios has revealed via a Steam update that sci-fi colony simulator RimWorld is transitioning off Unity. In the upcoming 1.7 patch, the game will instead run on the studio's proprietary Waylith Engine. The developer noted that while the overall gameplay and presentation will remain identical, players should expect performance gains between two to four times compared to the current build.

The technical shift targets multiple performance bottlenecks across the board. The studio highlighted that the new engine provides quicker startup sequences, faster world and map generation, elevated tick rates, and reduced loading times when handling heavily modded setups. In one cited test, a modpack containing 1,500 modifications saw its loading duration drop from 14 minutes down to six minutes.

Crucially for the community, the engine migration will not break existing modifications or player progress. Although certain items might trigger unsupported warnings simply due to the version increment, Ludeon confirmed they will continue to function properly. Furthermore, save files will carry over directly from version 1.6 to version 1.7 without any data loss.