Unity, the company behind the popular game engine of the same name, has officially canceled its runtime fee — a controversial move introduced last year that outraged game developers.
In a Unity website blog post, CEO Matt Bromberg said the company will be reverting back to its subscription model immediately after its new Unity Runtime Fee, which charged developers who met certain thresholds extra per user install, went over like a lead balloon when it was introduced last year. Not only was it confusing enough that the company had to make multiple clarifications, but users revolted. Some developers, like Innersloth, Aggro Crab, and Red Hook Studios, released statements condemning the move.
Unity will be moving back to a classic subscription model with a couple of changes to the tiers. The Unity Personal tier, which is free, will have a higher revenue ceiling: from $100,000 to $200,000. It’ll also only implement changes once a year instead of surprising developers like it did last year with the runtime fee. Here’s a quick rundown.
In an exclusive interview with Game Developer, Bromberg said the move was part of a plan to “become a fundamentally different company” after years of raising prices, laying off workers, and making controversial decisions like the runtime fee. Bromberg says he spoke with customers and developers on the issue and how Unity could raise prices without turning its back on other people.
“I’ve heard time and time again that you want a strong Unity, and understand that price increases are a necessary part of what enables us to invest in moving gaming forward. But those increases needn’t come in a novel and controversial new form,” he says in the blog.
Initially, the runtime fee would charge developers up to $0.20 per user install after it released $200,000 within 12 months — but it didn’t properly explain what an “install” meant. The extra fee would have little impact on larger games on the Enterprise plan, but indie developers on the lower-tier plans could suffer. Later, the company clarified that the fee would take downloads on subscription services like Xbox Game Pass and charity bundles into account.
It eventually backtracked slightly on the Unity Personal inclusion, only applying the runtime fee to games not made on the Personal tier or that made less than $1 million in 12 months. That didn’t stop developers from moving to other engines, like Unreal or Godot.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.