Ludeon Studios has announced Update 1.7 for the sci-fi colony sim *RimWorld*, which migrates the game’s engine from Unity to the studio’s proprietary “Waylith” engine.
From Unity to the in-house “Waylith” engine! Performance is 2 to 4 times faster
This sci-fi colony sim was officially released in 2018.
Update 1.7 migrates the game’s core engine from Unity to “Waylith,” a new engine developed in-house by Ludeon Studios. While the game’s visuals and gameplay remain unchanged, the development team reports that performance has improved by 2 to 4 times based on their tests.
The performance boost extends to nearly every aspect of the game, including startup, loading save files with a large number of mods installed, map and world generation, and in-game processing speeds.In stress tests using a late-game colony—which tends to be resource-intensive—the game recorded 2.2 times the performance compared to the 1.6 version. Additionally, with a mod pack containing 1,500 mods, load times were reportedly cut to less than half, dropping from 14 minutes to 6 minutes.
Please note that these are the developers’ own measurements, and the actual benefits may vary depending on your PC’s specifications and the mods you have installed.
When the entire engine is replaced, compatibility is a natural concern. However, save files from version 1.6 can be loaded directly into 1.7, and it’s also possible to load data saved in 1.7 back into 1.6 to continue playing. As for mods, the majority are said to work on 1.7 without any updates from the authors.
However, due to the change in version numbers, some mods may display a yellow warning indicating “may not be compatible.” Additionally, it’s noted that version 1.7 may not run on PCs that are more than 10 years old.
It has been announced that the new engine will allow mod creators to utilize the latest C# language features, making it easier to create complex mods without compromising game performance, and simplifying the implementation of major visual changes and complex custom effects.
Update 1.7 is already available to play on Steam’s “unstable” branch. To switch to it, right-click the game in your Steam library, open “Properties,” and select “unstable” under the “Beta” tab. The release date for the stable version has not been disclosed in the announcement.
“RimWorld isn’t the only game running on Waylith”… A mysterious “new title” is also teased
And the most intriguing part of this announcement is the “One more thing...” added at the end.
Ludeon Studios stated that ‘RimWorld’ isn’t the only game using Waylith and revealed that they are currently developing a new title. While it will be some time before they can share details, they said they simply couldn’t resist sharing this news.
In recent years, major updates for this title have been announced alongside expansion DLCs. In March 2024, Update 1.5 and the expansion DLC “Anomaly” were announced simultaneously, and in June 2025, Update 1.6 and the expansion DLC “Odyssey” were announced together.
However, the announcement for this Update 1.7 makes absolutely no mention of the new expansion DLC. Instead, what was teased was a “new title” running on the same engine.
Given that they’ve switched to their own in-house engine and are now developing a new game using it, it’s hard not to expect a sequel like *RimWorld 2*. Of course, at this point, neither the genre nor the title is known, so it’s also possible that this is an entirely new, separate title.
*RimWorld* is currently available for PC (Steam) for 3,900 yen.
