Open Source Linux Game Engines
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Game Engines for Linux
View 10 business solutionsBrowse free open source Game Engines and projects for Linux below. Use the toggles on the left to filter open source Game Engines by OS, license, language, programming language, and project status.
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Godot Engine
Godot is a powerful cross-platform game engine
Godot was created to provide a fully free, open source game development environment. To compile from source see the official docs here https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/development/compiling/ -
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Source Engine
Modified source engine (2017) developed by valve and leaked in 2020
The Source Engine repository under that particular GitHub user appears to be a custom (or forked) version of a game engine — likely an engine derived from or inspired by the classic Source engine lineage (or at least the name evokes that lineage). However, publicly-available documentation, community support or clarity about the project’s scope and maturity seems limited: the repo does not clearly advertise a full engine release or wide adoption. As such, it feels more like an experimental or hobby project: potentially a work-in-progress engine or engine-in-progress reimplementation rather than a full production-ready game engine. For a developer, this means you're likely to face missing features, limited tooling, and the need to fill gaps yourself, but also that you have a chance to influence or shape the architecture as you develop. -
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Xash3D FWGS Engine
Xash3D FWGS engine
Xash3D FWGS is an open-source fork and extension of the original GoldSrc-based engine (from the classic era of first-person shooters), aimed at providing compatibility with the original engine (e.g. games built on it) while extending and modernizing its capabilities. The engine supports multiple rendering backends (OpenGL, GLES, software fallback), modern platforms (desktop OSes, mobile, etc.), and updated features such as better multiplayer, voice chat, IPv6 support, improved virtual filesystem, and support for modern asset formats. For modders or fans of classic games, Xash3D FWGS offers a way to play or build games using the familiar GoldSrc workflow but with updated portability and features. Legacy mods and maps for supported games can often be used unchanged (or with minimal modifications), preserving the classic experience. At the same time, the engine’s enhancements — modern input support (gamepad, touch), modern OS compatibility, cross-platform builds. -
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Ren'Py
The Ren'Py Visual Novel Engine
Ren’Py is a free and open-source visual novel engine that makes telling interactive stories easy by combining narrative scripting with multimedia support for images, sound, and music in a way that’s accessible to both beginners and experienced developers. Its scripting language is designed to be readable and intuitive, allowing writers and creators to define scenes, dialogues, branching choices, character expressions, and events without deep programming knowledge, while still offering the ability to embed Python for advanced control and custom gameplay features. The engine handles essential visual novel conventions like save and load systems, rollback to previous text, scene transitions, and UI menus, so creators can focus on the story and player experience. Because it’s built on Python and widely supported across platforms, Ren’Py games can run on Windows, macOS, Linux, mobile devices, and even in browsers with HTML5 builds, helping developers reach a broad audience. -
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3D game engine (more powerful redesign of the Cube engine) and FPS game
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Unreal Engine 4/5 Scripting System
Injectable LUA scripting system, SDK generator, live property editor
Lua scripting system platform, C++ Modding API, SDK generator, blueprint mod loader, live property editor and other dumping utilities for UE4/5 games. The goal of UE4SS is not to be a plug-n-play solution that always works with every game. The goal is to have an underlying system that works for most games. -
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A game engine for running Ultima7 on modern operating systems, plus a map-editor and other tools for creating your own mods and games.
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San Andreas Unity
Open source reimplementation of GTA San Andreas game engine in Unity
San Andreas Unity is an open-source reimplementation of GTA San Andreas game engine in Unity. This won't be a complete reimplementation, but the focus is on gameplay features, multiplayer, and creating a framework that will allow easy game extension and unlimited modding possibilities. When running for the first time, the game will ask you for a path to GTA installation. You need to own GTA in order to play it. The game is tested on Linux, Windows, Mac, and Android. It supports both Mono and IL2CPP scripting backends, so it can be built for any platform that Unity supports, provided that you can copy PC version of GTASA to target device. Game fully works in multiplayer. You can start the game as dedicated server, as a host (server & client at the same time), or you can connect to a server. This works on all supported platforms, which means you can start a host even on Android device. -
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QuakeSpasm
A modern, cross-platform Quake game engine based on FitzQuake.
QuakeSpasm is a *Nix friendly Quake Engine based on the SDL port of the popular FitzQuake. It includes some new features, important fixes, and aims for portability and 64 bit correctness. -
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Multi Theft Auto: San Andreas
Multi Theft Auto is a game engine
Multi Theft Auto (MTA) is a software project that adds network play functionality to Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto game series, in which this functionality is not originally found. It is a unique modification that incorporates an extendable network play element into a proprietary commercial single-player PC game. Multi Theft Auto is based on code injection and hooking techniques whereby the game is manipulated without altering any original files supplied with the game. The software functions as a game engine that installs itself as an extension of the original game, adding core functionality such as networking and GUI rendering while exposing the original game's engine functionality through a scripting language. Originally founded back in early 2003 as an experimental piece of C/C++ software, Multi Theft Auto has since grown into an advanced multiplayer platform for gamers and third-party developers. -
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PlayCanvas Engine
Fast and lightweight JavaScript game engine built on WebGL and glTF
PlayCanvas is an open-source game engine. It uses HTML5 and WebGL to run games and other interactive 3D content in any mobile or desktop browser. PlayCanvas is used by leading companies in video games, advertising and visualization such as Animech, Arm, BMW, Disney, Facebook, Famobi, Funday Factory, IGT, King, Miniclip, Leapfrog, Mojiworks, Mozilla, Nickelodeon, Nordeus, NOWWA, PikPok, PlaySide Studios, Polaris, Product Madness, Samsung, Snap, Spry Fox, Zeptolab, Zynga. The PlayCanvas Engine gives incredible performance, even on devices such as the iPhone 4S. PlayCanvas ensures a fast loading time by using multiple features such as script concatenation, minification, deferred loading of non-essential assets and more. PlayCanvas has many team features such as being able to chat with your teammates directly from within the Editor. -
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ursina
A game engine powered by python and panda3d
ursina is an easy-to-use, open source game engine and framework for Python that is built on top of Panda3D, aiming to make game development approachable while still being powerful enough for real projects. It lets you create both 2D and 3D games, applications, and visualizations by writing concise Python scripts instead of dealing with a lot of low-level boilerplate. The engine is centered around an Entity-based architecture, where everything in the scene is an object you can easily configure and manipulate from code. Ursina focuses heavily on iteration speed, offering in-game reloading of code, textures, and models so you can tweak and test changes quickly. It includes many batteries-included features such as a mesh API for procedural geometry, built-in animation and tweening, pre-made controllers like FirstPersonController and EditorCamera, and a library of shaders and 3D primitives. -
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OpenRA
Real Time Strategy game engine supporting early Westwood classics
OpenRA is a free and open source real-time strategy game engine for early Westwood games like Command & Conquer: Red Alert. It is not just a clone of the original but is a recreation, with improved and rebalanced gameplay that modernizes the classic Command & Conquer strategy games. It provides a common platform for rebuilding and reimagining classic 2D and 2.5D RTS games (the OpenRA mods). This means that OpenRA is not restricted by the technical limitations of the original closed-source games: it includes native support for modern operating systems and screen resolutions (including Windows 10, Mac OS X, and most Linux distros) without relying on emulation or binary hacks, and features integrated online multiplayer. -
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GemRB Game Engine
GemRB is a portable open-source implementation of the Infinity Engine
GemRB (Game engine made with pre-Rendered Background) is a portable open-source implementation of Bioware's Infinity Engine. It was written to support pseudo-3D role playing games based on the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset (Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series, Planescape: Torment). It should run on GNU/Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X, possibly other UNIX derivatives and more. It is licensed under the GPL. -
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GDevelop
The game engine for everyone
GDevelop is an open-source, cross-platform game development software designed to make creating HTML5 and native games easy for everyone. Experts and novices alike can create their own games with GDevelop as it is fast and easy to learn, requiring no knowledge in a specific programming language. What makes GDevelop unique and so easy to use is its powerful and intuitive event-based system. Events are a powerful way to build up your game logic, without having to learn a programming language. GDevelop also features ready-made behaviors for your game objects, and allows you to create new behaviors through the easy to learn events. And when you're done, you can publish your game just about anywhere-- web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux and even Facebook Messenger. Making games has never been easier or faster than with GDevelop! -
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MineTest
Open source voxel game engine with support for survival and crafting
An open source voxel game engine. -
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Luanti
Voxel game-creation platform with easy modding and game creation
Luanti, originally known as Minetest, is a free, open-source voxel game engine and platform designed to let players, modders, and developers build and play diverse sandbox-style 3D worlds. Written in C++ for core performance and Lua for scripting, Luanti runs on multiple operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD variants and even Android), making it highly accessible and cross-platform. Rather than being a single game, Luanti is meant as an engine and toolkit: individual “games” are actually collections of mods — written in Lua — that define terrain, items, NPCs, mechanics, and rules. This modular design enables rich customization and community-driven content: users can install new games, mods, and texture packs via a built-in content browser that draws from a central repository (ContentDB). Luanti supports both single-player and multiplayer via servers; players can host their own or join publicly listed ones, with server-side mods being applied automatically. -
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Pyxel
A retro game engine for Python
A retro game engine for Python. Thanks to its simple specifications inspired by retro gaming consoles, such as only 16 colors can be displayed and only 4 sounds can be played back at the same time, you can feel free to enjoy making pixel art style games. The motivation for the development of Pyxel is the feedback from users. Please give Pyxel a star on GitHub! Pyxel's specifications and APIs are inspired by PICO-8 and TIC-80. Pyxel is open source and free to use. Let's start making a retro game with Pyxel! Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Web. Using the Pyxel Web Launcher or custom elements for HTML, you can run Pyxel in a web browser without any installation work. Pyxel supports a dedicated application distribution file format (Pyxel application file) that works across platforms. 8 musics that can combine arbitrary sounds. -
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fheroes2
fheroes2 is a recreation of Heroes of Might and Magic II game engine
fheroes2 is a recreation of the Heroes of Might and Magic II game engine. This open-source multiplatform project, written from scratch, is designed to reproduce the original game with significant improvements in gameplay, graphics and logic (including support for high-resolution graphics, improved AI, numerous fixes and user interface improvements), breathing new life into one of the most addictive turn-based strategy games. You can find a complete list of all of our changes and enhancements in its own wiki page. -
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jMonkeyEngine
A complete 3-D game development suite written in Java
jMonkeyEngine is a 3-D game engine for adventurous Java developers. It’s open-source, cross-platform, and cutting-edge. v3.6.1 is the latest stable version of the engine. The engine is used by several commercial game studios and computer-science courses. -
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Open 3D Engine (O3DE)
Open 3D Engine (O3DE) is an Apache 2.0-licensed multi-platform 3D
Easier team collaboration, artist workflows & multiplayer setup, increased terrain performance, new rendering features. Developed with cutting-edge, real-time graphics and complex interactions in mind, O3DE allows you to create robust, engaging experiences using our multi-threaded and extensible photorealistic renderer. O3DE's modular architecture is built for customization from day one. Each component, known as a Gem, can be adopted separately, giving you access to the specific functionality needed for your application. Add new editing tools, features, and development workflows to your projects. Choose from a variety of community-maintained Gems to extend and enhance the engine's capabilities in anything from AI and robotics to push notifications and VR.With our engine's SDK capabilities, you can use O3DE as a foundation for any type of 3D project you can imagine. -
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Solar2D Game Engine
Solar2D Game Engine main repository (ex Corona SDK)
This is a fully open source project that is forked of the well-established and widely used Corona SDK game engine, which is no longer commercially supported. Development is lead by Vlad Shcherban, former technical lead engineer at Corona Labs Inc. If you are using this engine, consider supporting its development. Develop for mobile, desktop, and connected TV devices with just one code base: iOS, tvOS, Android, Android TV, macOS, Windows, Linux, or HTML5. Update your code, save the changes, and instantly see the results in our instant-update Simulator. When you're ready to test on real devices, build and deploy your app just once and then see code/assets update automatically, all over your local network. It's like magic. Select from numerous plugins which extend the Solar2D core for features like in-app advertising, analytics, media, and much more. A vast variety of plugins is available via Solar2D free directory or third party stores, like Solar2D Marketplace and Solar2D Plugins. -
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VCMI Project
Open-source engine for Heroes of Might and Magic III
VCMI is work-in-progress attempt to recreate engine for Heroes III, giving it new and extended possibilities. To use VCMI you need to own original data files. -
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Bevy
A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust
A refreshingly simple data-driven game engine built in Rust. All engine and game logic uses Bevy ECS, a custom Entity Component System. Massively Parallel and Cache-Friendly. The fastest ECS according to some benchmarks. Components are Rust structs, Systems are Rust functions. Queries, Global Resources, Local Resources, Change Detection, Lock-Free Parallel Scheduler. Bevy is still in the very early stages of development. APIs can and will change (now is the time to make suggestions!). Important features are missing. Documentation is sparse. Please don't build any serious projects in Bevy unless you are prepared to be broken by API changes constantly. Bevy relies heavily on improvements in the Rust language and compiler. As a result, the Minimum Supported Rust Version (MSRV) is "the latest stable release" of Rust. Built directly on top of Bevy's ECS, Renderer, and Scene plugins. -
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Defold
Free game engine for development of desktop, mobile, and web games
Defold is an open-source, cross-platform game engine originally developed for 2D games but also capable of 3D — intended to give developers a turnkey solution for building games for desktop, mobile, web, and even consoles. It ships as a full editor/IDE, combining scene editing, asset management, scripting, and build/export pipelines, so developers don’t need to assemble disparate tools themselves. Game logic is written in Lua (with optional native extensions in C/C++ when needed), and the engine uses a component-based system and a message-passing paradigm to manage object interactions — a design that promotes loosely-coupled, reactive game code rather than traditional heavy OOP. Defold is optimized for efficiency: exported games tend to have small binary size and low memory use, making it appealing for mobile, HTML5/web, and lightweight games.
