The Reddit thread denotes that, in a bid to get around potentially losing access to Unity and Unreal 5 in the future, IT developers in the country have begun talking with the Ministry of Digital Development about making a “domestic game engine” for developers in Russia to use. The possibility of allocating state funds was also brought up in these talks. Granted, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to Russia losing access to many infrastructure options. The sanctions have taken a lot of things away from Russia, and the developers in question want to nip this in the bud. In a report to the Polish website XGP, this information is corroborated while providing additional context. The page also notes that even if this idea were greenlit, projects using it would have to start from scratch. In contrast, Unity and Unreal “already have a highly detailed developed ecosystem, full of ready-made blocks and integrations.” All of this started back on May 18th, in a closed meeting between the presidential administration and gaming industry representatives. There, developers discussed further use of Unity and Unreal Engine and the very real possibility that further access could be limited. Although not explicitly stated, one could assume that Vladimir Putin’s own actions on the country may have to do with this eventual limitation. Other concerns that were noted here include a lack of specialists willing to work on a brand-new engine, as well as a possibility that graphics card manufacturers (such as AMD or NVIDIA) won’t be too keen on assisting with Russian software development. As for where this “domestic game engine” is in the pipeline, it hasn’t been approved yet. We’ll continue to update as the story develops.
