Godot Engine is seeing “explosive growth” – the total number of Godot games published on Steam this year has already surpassed last year’s, with 5 months left to go 

Juan Linietsky, developer of Godot Engine, reported on August 6 that there has been a significant spike in the number of games published on Steam that use the engine. Figures from the first seven months of 2024 have already surpassed 2023’s total. 

Godot Engine, nicknamed the “Blender of game engines,” is an open-source 2D/3D engine for developing games and apps for PC, mobile and browsers. It has its roots in an in-house engine that one of its developers, Linietsky, once worked on for his own studio, and was later released to the public in 2014. Godot is available completely free of charge, with the engine’s development costs covered by donations. 

A fair number of hit indie titles have been developed in Godot, such as Brotato, Cassette Beasts and Dome Keeper. While Unity and Unreal Engine remain popular choices for developers, Godot seems to be gradually winning the hearts of studios. 

According to a graph shared by Godot’s creator Linietsky (presumably from SteamDB), the number of games developed with the Godot Engine and released on Steam exceeded 100 in 2020, and the engine’s use appears to have been on a constant rise since then. 

Last year’s total came to 389 titles, and as of August 2024, there have been 394 Godot games published on Steam. With there still being 5 months left to go in 2024, Linietsky rightfully describes Godot Engine’s recent growth as “absolutely explosive.” 

Among the titles released this year are Backpack Battle, Until Then, Of Life and Land, and Windowkill. In addition, Unrailed 2: Back on Track, Dig Dig Boom, and Stunt Xpress are slated for launch later in 2024. 

One of the contributing factors to Godot’s popularity may be the recent confusion surrounding Unity. Unity Technologies announced in September last year that they would introduce a new system called the Unity Runtime Fee, which would charge developers a new fee based on the number of game installations. However, after meeting strong backlash from users, Unity backtracked on some of the new rules and made revisions. 

But despite these efforts, the whole Runtime Fee debacle resulted in broken trust, with many Unity developers seeking alternative game engines. This coincided with a sudden boost in Godot Engine users at the time, and the numerous games being released this year are likely the aftermath of this big migration. 

As an aside, it’s worth mentioning that despite recent happenings, the number of games developed in Unity and released on Steam has been growing roughly every year too. The total for 2023 was 7,400, and the current total for 2024 so far is 5,000 (source: SteamDB), meaning the final figure will likely top that of last year’s.