In a game dev ecosystem increasingly dominated by plug-and-play engines and AI-powered design tools, a curious trend is re-emerging. Some developers in 2025 are choosing to build video games without using any traditional game engine. Not Unity. Not Unreal. Not even Godot.

Why? Because going engine-less offers a level of control, understanding, and creative freedom that’s hard to match, even in a post-AI world.

Let’s dive into the why, how, and who of making games from scratch in 2025, and why this hardcore approach might still have a place in the future of game development.

Engines Still Dominate the Market, but the Outliers Matter

Before we get into the advantages of going engine-free, let’s acknowledge the current state of the industry:

• Unity powers around 51% of all games released on Steam as of 2024.

• Unreal Engine accounts for 28% and dominates high-end commercial titles.

• Custom engines or raw-code builds make up less than 10% of the market.

• Interestingly, Unreal games outperform others in revenue per title, suggesting higher commercial impact per release.

Despite their popularity, game engines come with limitations—licensing costs, overhead, vendor lock-in, and black-box behaviors. For some devs, the trade-offs are just not worth it.

Why Go Without a Game Engine in 2025?

1. Full Creative Control and Deep Learning

When you skip the engine, you get access to the bones and muscles of your game architecture. This means:

• You build your own game loop.

• You write your own physics or rendering logic.

• You learn how memory is allocated and optimized.

• You understand how real-time input, animation, and state management work under the hood.

This is why engine-less development is often recommended for those who want to deeply learn game systems.

“If you want to understand how a car drives, build the engine first.” — Noel Berry

2. Optimized Performance

No engine means no bloat. You include only what you need:

• Smaller binary size (critical for mobile or embedded systems).

• Reduced runtime memory usage.

• Direct control over GPU and CPU utilization.

This approach is common in browser-based games and performance-sensitive applications.

3. No Licensing Headaches

One major motivator post-2023 is the freedom from runtime fees and license changes. After Unity’s pricing backlash in late 2023, many developers began re-evaluating their dependency on proprietary platforms.

When you write your own framework or rely on low-level libraries, you own your code and your distribution pipeline.

What You Use Instead of Engines

Going engine-less doesn’t mean starting with a blank file in Notepad. Many modern devs use these tools:

• SDL2 / GLFW – For windowing and input handling

• OpenGL / Vulkan / WebGPU – For rendering

• Emscripten – To compile C/C++ to WebAssembly

• Freetype / stb_image – For image and font rendering

• Rust (with Bevy ECS manually implemented) – For performance and safety

In short, you’re piecing together your own lightweight engine based on your exact needs.

Ideal Use Cases

Engine-less development isn’t for every type of game. But it excels in areas like:

• Retro and pixel-art games

• Academic and educational projects

• Browser/WebAssembly games

• Creative coding experiments and demoscenes

Games built for niche or custom hardware

The Rise of AI Tools That Help Code From Scratch

Interestingly, 2025’s AI landscape makes going engine-less more manageable than ever:

• GitHub Copilot and GPT-4 help generate low-level rendering code and assist with debugging.

• AI art tools handle sprites and environment design, even if you’re solo.

• AI performance advisors suggest optimizations for your custom-built render pipeline.

You’re still doing the hard work, but you’ve got smarter tools by your side.

So Why Do It?

Making a game without an engine is like building a house with your bare hands. It’s slower. It’s harder. But it’s yours from the ground up.

For some devs, especially solo creators and technical artists, that journey of craftsmanship is more rewarding than shipping another Unity-based title.

Klizos‘ Takeaway

If you’re learning game development or want to escape the constraints of third-party engines, going raw can be a powerful path. Just start small: build Pong, then Breakout, then a simple 2D platformer. Don’t aim for a 3D MMORPG on day one.

Engine-less game development is not dead. In fact, in a world where everyone is building faster, cheaper, and lazier, it might just be the boldest move a dev can make.