Facepunch, the development studio behind Garry’s Mod and Rust, has officially released its S&box game engine as an open-source project. The engine, which began as a spiritual successor to Garry’s Mod, is built using C# and Valve’s Source 2 engine technology. The complete source code for the engine and its accompanying editor is now publicly available.

The decision to transition S&box to an open-source model was announced by Facepunch in a public statement. This move makes the core technology accessible to a wider community of developers and contributors.

Accelerating Development Through Community Collaboration

According to the official announcement from Facepunch, the primary motivation for open-sourcing S&box is to accelerate its development and attract more people to the platform. The studio stated, “We believe that the best way to improve a product is to let the community help.” The developers also noted that making the source code available promotes transparency and builds trust with its user base. The project is described as being in a usable state but is still considered a work in progress, with Facepunch now inviting contributions via pull requests on its official repository.

Repository Details and Licensing

The S&box engine and editor have been released under the permissive MIT license, allowing for broad use and modification by the community. The code is hosted on GitHub in a public repository. It is important to note that while the engine and editor are open source, certain backend components, such as the asset party system, will remain closed source and proprietary to Facepunch. The open-source release is specifically targeted at individuals interested in contributing directly to the development of a game engine.