Best Free Game Development Software

Blender

Blender Foundation

Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipeline. Cycles is Blender’s built-in powerful unbiased path-tracer engine that offers stunning ultra-realistic rendering. Blender’s comprehensive array of modeling tools make creating, transforming and editing your models a breeze. VFX professionals say: “Probably the best tracker in the market”. Blender includes production ready camera and object tracking. Allowing you to import raw footage, track the footage, mask areas and see the camera movements live in your 3D scene. Eliminating the need to switch between programs. Thanks to the high quality rigging and animation tools, Blender is being used for numerous short films, advertisements, TV series and feature films now.

8 Ratings

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Roblox

Roblox’s mission is to bring the world together through play. We enable anyone to imagine, create, and have fun with friends as they explore millions of immersive 3D experiences, all built by a global community of developers. Roblox is powered by a global community of over two million developers who produce their own immersive multiplayer experiences each month using Roblox Studio, our intuitive desktop design tool. Any experience imaginable can be created on Roblox. Roblox is ranked as one of the top online entertainment platforms for audiences under the age of 18 based on average monthly visits and time spent (Comscore). Our popularity is driven purely by the community with millions of people signing up through word of mouth every month. Be creative and show off your unique style! Customize your avatar with tons of hats, shirts, faces, gear, and more. With an ever-expanding catalog of items, there’s no limit to the looks you can create.

2 Ratings

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Perforce Helix Plan

Perforce

Perforce Helix Plan is a real-time planning and project management tool designed to enhance collaboration across teams, offering flexibility in managing projects through various development methodologies such as SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, and more. It allows teams to track work, time, and progress in real time, providing comprehensive visibility and advanced features like capacity planning and project history. The tool integrates with existing workflows and tools, such as Helix Core and Helix ALM, for deeper traceability and smoother operations. With a user-friendly interface that adapts to individual team preferences, Helix Plan helps accelerate planning and decision-making, ensuring faster delivery and greater efficiency across development teams.

1 Rating

Starting Price: $28.00/month/user

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XSplit Broadcaster

SplitmediaLabs

Live stream and record your content with ease & share it to streaming services like Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Mixer, etc. Start your broadcast today. XSplit is a live streaming and recording software designed for gaming, presentations and live events. This AI-powered software allows game developers to start live streaming of their games in pristine quality. The software also has a multilingual support team to assist you 24/7. Currently there are four members in the XSplit family: XSplit Broadcaster XSplit Gamecaster XSplit VCam XSplit Express Video Editor

1 Rating

Starting Price: $5.00/month

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C++Builder

Embarcadero

C++Builder is a fast, integrated design and development suite for modern apps. Are you ready to design the best UIs of your life? Our award winning VCL framework for Windows and FireMonkey (FMX) visual framework for cross-platform UIs provide you with the foundation for intuitive, beautiful user interfaces that wow on every platform: Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Design your master UI layout once, then easily customize platform- and device-specific views without duplication of design effort. Drag-and-drop visual and non-visual components from the palette using our visual designer. Visually connect user interface elements to data sources using the LiveBindings Designer. Real-time design validation using Live On-Device Preview to broadcast the active form to multiple devices simultaneously. Add responsive design with resolution-aware components for desktop, tablets, and smartphones. Real, platform-specific native controls for an improved user experience.

1 Rating

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PubNub

Innovate with Realtime Features: We take care of realtime communication infrastructure so you can focus on your app. Our Platform for Realtime Communication: A platform to build and operate real-time interactivity for web, mobile, AI/ML, IoT, and Edge computing applications Faster & Easier Deployments: SDK support for 50+ mobile, web, server, and IoT environments (PubNub and community supported) and more than 65 pre-built integrations with external and third-party APIs to give developers the features they need regardless of programming language or tech stack. Scalability: The industry’s most scalable platform capable of supporting millions of concurrent users and allows for rapid growth with low latency, high uptime, and without financial penalties. Security & Compliance: Enterprise-grade security and compliance with the most stringent regulations worldwide, including GDPR, SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and CCPA.

Starting Price: $0

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articy:draft

Articy

Interactive stories are complex by nature. articy:draft 3 is helping hundreds of game writers, narrative designers and other interactive storytellers to keep track of all their storylines and manage their narrative content in a visual way. Write branching dialogue with ease, reference characters and items in text to keep all your context at hand, create templates to adapt the information to your story world, add global variables, script your story logic and test it right inside articy:draft in a visual way, before you write a single piece of code. When done, the helpful exports to Unity, Unreal or JSON will help you get all your content into the engine of your choice. Download the FREE Standalone version and start exploring all your interactive story ideas right away.

Starting Price: €5.99 Single User per month

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Avoyd

enkisoftware

Avoyd Voxel Editor and Renderer Create, import, export and render large voxel worlds. 3D art and rendering tool for voxel artists, map builders and game developers. Main Features: - Large scenes up to 256k voxels a side. - CPU and GPU path traced rendering. - Export to optimised mesh glTF and OBJ with physically-based materials parameters, and VOX. - Import MagicaVoxel VOX, Minecraft maps, heightmaps, palettes. - Orthographic projection with Isometric presets. - Up to 65k physically based materials. - Physically based light and atmosphere

Starting Price: €15 one-time payment

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devtodev

devtodev is an ultimate product analytics platform for data-driven teams to get valuable insights and influence user decisions. With devtodev you can convert users into paying users, improve in-app economics, predict churn, revenue and customer lifetime value, as well as analyze and influence user behavior.

Starting Price: Free

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Incredibuild

Incredibuild is the leading platform for development acceleration. Our platform speeds up developer and CI builds with our distribution and caching technologies, cutting down wait times from hours and days to minutes. Most importantly, we do so without changing your code, tools, or processes, on prem or on the cloud. Incredibuild gives you better visibility into your builds, significant acceleration, and smarter build asset orchestration for 8-10x faster builds. 200,000 devs and managers at over 2,000 companies, including world-leading brands like Microsoft, Amazon, Citibank, Adobe, Disney, Intel, Samsung, EPIC Games, Nintendo, and many more rely on Incredibuild to turbocharge their development and continuously delight their customers.

Starting Price: $0

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Xsolla

Xsolla is the video game ecommerce platform powered by Transaction Engine and Business Engine to help developers and publishers market, sell, connect and optimize their games globally. Serving only the video game industry, the Xsolla Transaction Engine and Business Engine work seamlessly together to solve the complexities of distribution, marketing and monetization so developers, publishers and platform partners can increase their audience, sales and revenue. Market, sell, connect, and optimize your game with one platform, powered by Xsolla Transaction Engine and Business Engine. Accessible solutions that combine our products, industry connections, and expertise to meet your company’s specific needs. Great games can emerge anywhere. We at Xsolla are here to ensure the best ideas get made, get seen, and get played. So we've built a suite of products that remove the barriers between creators and the support they need.

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PlayFab

Microsoft

The game industry's most powerful backend platform. Sign up for a developer account and explore all the ways you can control your game with Azure PlayFab's easy-to-use web interface. Ready to start integrating your game? Pick your SDK, fill in your credentials, and you're off and running! Everything you need to build and operate a live game. Meet players where they are and connect them with friends on any platform. Dynamically scale dedicated multiplayer servers. Keep players coming back for more. Gain immediate insight into game performance and potential issues. Import, store, process and export data generated by your games. Comply with GDPR, COPPA and other government regulations. Process payments, manage virtual currency, sell catalog items and guard against fraud. Help players build relationships and communities. Configure custom operations and react to events in real-time. Set up your virtual economy, add leaderboards or craft the perfect matchmaking logic.

Starting Price: $99 per month

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GamerGraph

Instant, real-time reports and analytics for features, player behavior, game performance, and monetization. Fully scalable cloud platform that adheres to security and compliance frameworks. You don't need to build, configure, or manage a backend. Always-on access to game data through visual heatmaps and dashboards that identify activity and behavior trends. Pre-built social modules you can use to rapidly increase engagement across more players and improve game marketability. No need to configure or manage servers or integrations. Simply connect your game to the GamerGraph cloud platform, and in less than 2 minutes, you’ll have real-time access to comprehensive player and game analytics. Connect your game to GamerGraph using an Unreal blueprint, Unity Prefab, or a few lines of your own code. As soon as the game is played, your dashboard is immediately populated with data in simple, easy-to-read graphs that function in real-time.

Starting Price: $99 per month

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Zebedee

From high-stakes esports tournaments to casual mobile games, our world is open to everyone. Bitcoin is programmable money. We make it a seamless part of the game experience. If you can scan a QR code, you can earn with Zebedee. Straightforward, instant, and available now. Play our games or play with our APIs. Either way, you'll soon discover why Bitcoin is transforming the world of gaming. Open a new acquisition channel and revenue stream in the quickly growing world of Bitcoin gaming. Gain an edge over your competition by offering cutting-edge Bitcoin Lightning services and a gateway into the exploding world of Bitcoin gaming. Play a single intense match with live Bitcoin transfers and earn a share of the prize pot based on your percentage of the total score. In survival mode, your sats are your life. When you score, you get an extra life. When you die, you lose some life. If you run out of seats, you get kicked from the match.

Starting Price: Free

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Inworld

The developer platform for AI characters. Get a fully integrated platform for AI characters that goes beyond large language models (LLMs), and adds configurable safety, knowledge, memory, narrative controls, multimodality, and more. Craft characters with distinct personalities and contextual awareness that stay in-world or on brand. Seamlessly integrate into real-time applications, with optimization for scale and performance built-in. Optimized for real-time experiences, Inworld offers low-latency interactions that scale with your application. Orchestrating across LLMs allows us to deliver high-quality interactions with faster inference and lower costs. Every interaction has a context and models need to be aware of yours. Add custom knowledge, content and safety guardrails, and narrative controls to keep your AI in character, in-world, or on brand. Put personality at the center of your AI. Our multimodal AI mimics the full range of human expression.

Starting Price: $20 per month

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Texture Lab

Create unique seamless textures from any text. Ready to use, free textures, generated with TextureLab, try variations on them! Instant textures for your next game.

Starting Price: Free

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Beamable

That's all that's needed to get the ability to build your own custom server logic via microservices along with a world of LiveOps tools and live services to build games in unity and unreal that players love. The first marketplace of live services solutions for games, plug-ins for monetization, generative AI, blockchain, and more. Built around a common data fabric that lets you snap together components that extend your game — without the headaches. Deliver state-of-the-art live services to all of your game teams. The entire Beamable live services stack can be deployed on-prem or in your own cloud environment, providing the ultimate in security, control, and flexibility. Starting building cloud-native live services for your game today. One line of code unlocks systems like persistent worlds, customized servers, social systems, and managed inventory — with no backend servers to configure or install.

Starting Price: $10 per 1 million API calls

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Nakama

Heroic Labs

Nakama is an open source game server framework developed by Heroic Labs, designed to facilitate the creation of real-time, multiplayer, and social games across various platforms, including Godot, Unity, Unreal Engine, and more. It provides a comprehensive suite of features such as real-time multiplayer capabilities, customizable matchmaking algorithms, leaderboards, in-game chat, and support for in-game currencies. Developers can extend Nakama's functionality using server-side logic written in Go, TypeScript, or Lua, allowing for authoritative game mechanics and enhanced control over game state. The platform also offers open-source client libraries tailored for different game engines and languages, ensuring seamless integration and flexibility in game development. Nakama is your dedicated server, not another multi-tenant SaaS. Add custom features and secure authoritative gameplay logic directly to your game server.

Starting Price: Free

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PlayerIO

PlayerIO provides a robust suite of tools and services tailored for developers of online games, allowing them to focus on creating engaging experiences without worrying about backend complexities. The platform includes powerful features like a cloud-based database for scalable data storage, a file storage system for asset management, and comprehensive hosting solutions. It also supports multiplayer game functionalities and offers extensive analytics, virtual economy systems, and easy integration with multiple payment gateways, positioning itself as a one-stop solution for game development needs.

Starting Price: $24.95 per month

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raylib

raylib is a simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy video game programming. It is a programming library to enjoy video game programming; no fancy interface, no visual helpers, no GUI tools or editors, just coding in a pure spartan-programmers way. raylib does not provide the typical API documentation or a big set of tutorials. The library is designed to be minimalistic and be learned just from a cheat sheet with all required functionality and a big collection of examples to see how to use that functionality. The best way to learn to code is by reading code. raylib supports multiple target platforms, it has been tested in the following ones but, technically, any platform that supports C language and OpenGL graphics (or similar) can run raylib or it can be very easily ported to. You can use raylib with multiple programming languages, there are over 60 bindings. raylib can be combined with several extra libraries for additional functionality.

Starting Price: Free

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GameplayKit

Apple

GameplayKit is a collection of foundational tools and technologies for building games in iOS, OS X, and tvOS. Building, evolving, and maintaining a sophisticated game requires a well-planned design, GameplayKit provides architectural tools to help you design modular, scalable game architecture with minimal effort. Creating great games also requires deploying complex algorithms to solve the problems underlying common game mechanics, GameplayKit also provides standard implementations of such algorithms, allowing you to spend more time on the features that make your gameplay unique. Because GameplayKit is independent of high-level game engine technologies, you can combine it with any of those technologies to build a complete game, SpriteKit for 2D games, SceneKit for 3D games, or a custom or third-party game engine using Metal or OpenGL ES. For games with less demanding graphics needs, you can even use GameplayKit with UIKit (in iOS or tvOS) or AppKit (in OS X).

Starting Price: Free

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Visual Studio

Microsoft

Full-featured IDE to code, debug, test, and deploy to any platform. Code faster. Work smarter. Create the future with the best-in-class IDE. Develop with the entire toolset from initial design to final deployment. Improved IntelliSense performance for C++ files. Local development with many common emulators. Simplified test access in Solution Explorer. Git management and repo creation in the IDE. Kubernetes support now included in Microsoft Azure workload. It doesn’t matter what type of app you are building, what language you program in, or what OS you’re on; with Live Share you can instantly share your project with your peers from the comfort of your own tools. No need to clone a repo or set up the environment, to get sharing.

Starting Price: $45.00 per month

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Assembla

Idera

Assembla is the most secure software development platform in the world. Get started in less than a minute, on-prem or in the cloud. Assembla SECUREGIT provides a fully supported and economical solution, on the infrastructure of your choice. Meet compliance requirements with the confidence that your data is protected. Assembla is your trusted partner on your journey to “what’s next.” Developers are not security engineers – they build code. And their code is typically 90% open source. Securing all that open source codes requires automation. Assembla SecureGit scans for secret key credentials and vulnerable component dependencies automatically, as developers commit code. Our operational playbook includes a bottom-up evaluation of the risks to security, risk mitigation techniques, and ongoing areas of investment to further reduce risks. Assembla is fully committed to GDPR with data centers in the EU.

Starting Price: $7.50 per month

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GameBench

Between our Android app, cross-platform Desktop app, and a CLI option for automation - performance testing has never been more accessible. Every time your game is launched Studio SDK records in the background, providing alerts only when you need them. Plug and play to measure the performance of any application, with zero code changes required. WIndows and Android are available now; ChromeBook alpha available now, beta Q3 2022, iOS alpha Q1 2023. Game performance benchmarking for ISPs, mobile operators, device manufacturers and OEMs. 5G, 4G and fixed wireless performance testing and platform comparisons for cloud gaming. Latency diagnosis and optimization for platform-ISP cloud gaming partnerships. Assessment and feasibility for new subscriber offerings in gaming and streaming media. Game performance benchmarking for game developers and publishers. Bespoke testing and monitoring services.

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Ready Player Me

Wolf3D

Ready Player Me is a cross-game avatar platform for the metaverse. It lets you create a 3D avatar with a selfie and use it in 600+ compatible apps and games. You can explore virtual worlds in VRChat, join meetings in MeetinVR, or stream to your fans using LIV – all with your personal avatar that represents you in virtual worlds. Any developer can integrate Ready Player Me into their apps and games using our free avatar SDK. It's compatible with Unity and Unreal Engine and works great on the web, mobile, and desktop platforms.

Starting Price: Free

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Wwise

Audiokinetic

Wwise is a cross-platform interactive audio middleware solution for software developers who need to integrate interactive audio into video games and other immersive audio projects. Wwise increases the productivity and creativity of the entire team, simplifies the work of programmers, and empowers audio teams to deliver superior immersive gaming and interactive audio experiences. Wwise offers real-time in-game preview capabilities and a rich set of functionalities, including sound authoring, dynamic mixing, 3D spatial audio, interactive music, and synthesis. Wwise integrates seamlessly with all major game development platforms, including Unreal Engine, Unity, Cryengine, and many others. Developers also have access to complete API and SDK toolkits. Over 1000 game and AR/VR titles are developed every year using Wwise, and with partnerships with the largest developers worldwide, 70% of the global AAA game market uses Wwise.

Starting Price: Free for Indie developers

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AppWarp

ShepHertz Technologies

AppWarp is a powerful real-time multiplayer game development framework that enables seamless integration of interactive online gameplay across multiple platforms. Supporting over 18 SDKs, including iOS, Android, Unity3D, and Cocos2Dx, it allows developers to create engaging real-time and turn-based multiplayer experiences effortlessly. AppWarp offers essential features like matchmaking, connection stability, and cross-platform functionality, ensuring smooth gameplay interactions. Developers can leverage its intuitive client-side tools to manage virtual rooms, lobbies, and communication using a custom binary protocol. For those needing more control, AppWarp S2 provides an on-premise server solution, allowing developers to host their own authoritative game servers with advanced customization options such as server-side authentication and game logic.

Starting Price: $100 per month

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OpenGL

OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit, to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering. Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) began developing OpenGL in 1991 and released it on June 30, 1992. It is used for a variety of applications, including computer-aided design (CAD), video games, scientific visualization, virtual reality, and flight simulation. The OpenGL Registry contains specifications of the core API and shading language; specifications of Khronos- and vendor-approved OpenGL extensions; header files corresponding to the specifications; and related documentation including specifications, extensions, and headers for the GLX, WGL, and GLU APIs.

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Perforce Helix Core

Perforce

Perforce version control — Helix Core — tracks and manages changes to your source code, digital assets, and large binary files. But it does so much more than that. Helix Core helps development teams move faster, even as they develop more complex products. And it provides a single source of truth across development. Contributors can sync their work into Helix Core from the tools they’re already using. Plus, Helix Core can handle everything. 10s of thousands of users. 10s of millions of daily transactions, 100s of terabytes of data. And 10,000+ concurrent commits. It can even deliver files quickly to remote users without the WAN wait. And it can be used on-premises or in the cloud. Spend less time dealing with tools and processes — and more time delivering value. Helix Core ensures that everyone is efficient. You'll get fast feedback, flexibility, and automation for faster builds. Stop wasting your developers’ time with manual workflows — and let them get back to coding.

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3D Crafter

Amabilis Software

3DCrafter is a real-time 3D modeling and animation tool that incorporates an intuitive drag-and-drop approach to 3D modeling. Complex models can be constructed from simple 3D primitives, or created using 3DCrafter’s Shape Building Tools. Modeling tools are provided to deform, sculpt, and paint 3D shapes. Creating an animated scene is as simple as positioning the shapes within your scene for each point in time in your animation. 3DCrafter will ensure that the resulting animation runs smoothly. Your animation can be stepped through a frame at a time, viewed in real-time, or recorded to a Video (AVI) file so that you can distribute your creation. Tool roll-up groups allow you to customize the 3DCrafter interface so that only those items you use most frequently are visible. And if you need access to a less frequently used feature, the tool roll-up is always one click away. The standard version of 3DCrafter is a fully functional product provided as freeware.

1 Rating

Starting Price: $39.95 one time payment

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Compare the Top Free Game Development Software as of April 2025

What is Free Game Development Software?

Blender

Roblox

Perforce Helix Plan

XSplit Broadcaster

C++Builder

PubNub

articy:draft

Avoyd

devtodev

Incredibuild

Xsolla

PlayFab

GamerGraph

Zebedee

Inworld

Texture Lab

Beamable

Nakama

PlayerIO

raylib

GameplayKit

Visual Studio

Assembla

GameBench

Ready Player Me

Wwise

AppWarp

OpenGL

Perforce Helix Core

3D Crafter

Best Free Game Development Software

Compare the Top Free Game Development Software as of April 2025

What is Free Game Development Software?

Blender

Roblox

Perforce Helix Plan

XSplit Broadcaster

C++Builder

PubNub

articy:draft

Avoyd

devtodev

Incredibuild

Xsolla

PlayFab

GamerGraph

Zebedee

Inworld

Texture Lab

Beamable

Nakama

PlayerIO

raylib

GameplayKit

Visual Studio

Assembla

GameBench

Ready Player Me

Wwise

AppWarp

OpenGL

Perforce Helix Core

3D Crafter

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