Dean Hall, creator of DayZ, Icarus, and Kitten Space Agency, has criticized major gaming companies, stating that greed and the pursuit of cost reduction are destroying the industry from within. As an alternative to the existing development model, he introduced Brutal — a free, open-source framework designed to give developers more independence from large technology providers, including Epic Games and Unity.
Hall stated that the gaming industry has long been on an unsustainable path, and the proliferation of reverse engineering tools and powerful AI agents has only exacerbated the situation. In his opinion, one of the main problems is that developers have ceded too much control over their projects to companies whose interests do not always align with those of game creators.
Brutal is distributed for free, including for commercial projects. Developers will not have to pay royalties or share sales revenue, but using the framework requires attribution.
However, Brutal is not a full-fledged game engine, but a set of tools and technologies for creating games. It can be used as the basis for one's own project or integrated into other solutions. For example, RocketWerkz, a studio founded by Hall, used Brutal in the development of Kitten Space Agency, and RimWorld creators from Ludeon used it in conjunction with their Waylith engine.
Hall emphasizes that Brutal does not aim to replace all existing tools and will not suit every developer. Its goal is to offer another option for those who want to independently control the technical foundation of their games.
One of the events that prompted Hall to create an alternative was the Game Developers Conference 2025, where he asked a question to Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. According to the developer, Sweeney had long been an example of an outstanding programmer for him, but over time, Hall became annoyed that discussions around Unreal Engine increasingly focused on trendy technological directions — from the metaverse to artificial intelligence.
At the same time, as Hall noted, developers continue to face problems with performance, stability, and the consequences of decisions made by game engine creators.
During Sweeney's speech, Hall asked how accountable Epic is to developers for such problems. In response, the company's CEO, according to Hall's retelling, suggested creating more demo projects and publishing them on social media to counter criticism of games referred to as 'Unreal slop'.
Hall countered that the desire to produce more content in less time could itself be part of the problem: spectacular demos create a false impression among the audience about how easy it is to develop full-fledged games.
Separately, the developer criticized the terms of use for Unreal Engine. In certain cases, Epic charges a 5% royalty on game revenue above a set licensing threshold. Hall believes that developers should not unconditionally accept such terms and must have the option to choose alternative tools.
However, Hall himself does not call for a complete abandonment of popular engines: for example, his game Icarus uses Unreal Engine 4. He expects that more independent frameworks will emerge in the future, as creating such solutions will become significantly more accessible.
According to the developer, open source gives studios the opportunity not only to adapt tools to their needs but also to develop them independently or create their own project branches if the original authors stop considering the interests of the community.
"You are only as independent as your tools are independent," Hall formulated his position, explaining why he considers Brutal an important step towards changing the balance of power in the industry.