Announcing the Waylith Engine and Update 1.7
UNSTABLERimWorld migrates to the in-house Waylith Engine, delivering 2-4x performance gains and significantly faster loading for modded games.
Key Changes
- 1Migration to the custom in-house Waylith Engine
- 2Overall performance improvements of 2-4x
- 3Significant reduction in load times for large mod lists
- 42.2x performance increase for late-game colonies
- 5Faster map and world generation
- 6Full cross-compatibility for 1.6 and 1.7 savegames
- 7Support for latest C# language features for modders
All Changes
⚙️Technical(2)
- changeWaylith Engine: Migrated the game engine from Unity to the in-house Waylith Engine
- changeCompatibility: PCs older than 10 years may no longer be able to run the game on version 1.7
⚡Performance(8)
- fixPerformance: Overall game performance improved by 2-4x in internal testing
- fixPerformance: Late-game colony performance increased by 2.2x compared to version 1.6
- fixStartup: Reduced game startup times
- fixMod Loading: Improved game load times when using large mod lists
- fixMod Loading: Load time for a 1,500 modpack reduced from 14 minutes to 6 minutes
- fixMap Generation: Increased speed of map generation
- fixWorld Generation: Increased speed of world generation
- fixPerformance: Improved general ticks-per-second (TPS) performance
🔄Compatibility(3)
- changeSavegames: Version 1.6 savegames are fully compatible and will load in version 1.7
- changeSavegames: Version 1.7 savegames are backwards compatible and will load in version 1.6
- changeMods: The vast majority of existing mods remain functional in 1.7 without required changes
🛠️Modding(3)
- newC#: Added support for the latest C# language features for mod development
- newMods: Improved accessibility for implementing complex custom visual effects and major visual changes
- fixMods: Reduced performance overhead when developing complex mods
Summary
Waylith Engine Migration
RimWorld is transitioning from Unity to the Waylith Engine, a custom in-house engine developed by Ludeon Studios. While the gameplay remains identical, the engine swap provides massive performance optimizations across the entire game, particularly for large colonies and heavy mod lists.
Performance Improvements
Version 1.7 delivers 2-4x better performance in internal testing. Key improvements include faster startup times, map generation, and world generation. Late-game colonies with high colonist and animal counts see approximately 2.2x better performance, and load times for massive modpacks (1,500+ mods) have been reduced from 14 minutes to 6 minutes.
Modding and Compatibility
The update maintains high compatibility with version 1.6 savegames and the vast majority of existing mods. Modders gain access to the latest C# language features and improved tools for creating complex visual effects and high-performance mods. The update is currently available for testing on the Steam unstable beta branch.