RimWorld developer Ludeon Studios is replacing Unity with its own Waylith engine, claiming performance improvements of two to four times.
Update 1.7 introduces the engine change, with an unstable beta available for players willing to test it before the finished release.
Ludeon says the game retains its existing appearance and gameplay, while improving startup, map generation and simulation performance. Its late-game colony stress test delivered 2.2 times better performance compared with version 1.6.
The studio tested 1,500 mods, cutting loading time from 14 minutes to six minutes. That should leave players considerably less time to question the decisions that produced a collection of 1,500 mods. Save compatibility survives the transplant in both directions, allowing version 1.6 saves to load in the new build. Saves created in version 1.7 can return to version 1.6, according to Ludeon, while most mods remain compatible.
Those figures come from the developer’s testing, and improvements are expected to vary depending on hardware and installed mods.
PC Gamer reported encouraging early player feedback, including one test involving 1,477 mods that loaded in six minutes and 17 seconds. The player said the same collection previously took at least 30 minutes, though that remains an individual report.
Another player reported substantially higher frame rates and simulation speeds, accompanied by startup memory consumption of roughly 12 to 13GB. That suggests prospective testers should watch memory usage alongside the headline performance gains.
The beta remains unfinished, so its speed claims come before a final assessment across different systems. Ludeon’s announcement describes improvements throughout the game, including world generation and loading games with particularly large mod collections.
The studio revealed it’s developing another project using Waylith, though it hasn’t disclosed further details.
