S&box is a new game engine from Facepunch Studios as well as a spiritual successor to sandbox physics game Gary’s Mod. S&Box is a product with two sides, the game portal providing a gaming experience similar to UEFN or Roblox and the back end, a full game C# game engine build on top of Valve’s Source 2 engine (and including the Source 2 tooling such as the Hammer level editor). S&box was just released today on Steam for $20 USD. In addition to being able to create experiences to run in S&box, you will soon be able to freely publish your games to Steam, making S&Box somewhat of a competitor to the likes of Unity, Godot and Unreal Engine, but only when it comes to Steam.
Features of the S&box game/game engine include:
- Source 2 Engine: Built on the same engine as Half-Life: Alyx and Counter-Strike 2.
- Multiplayer: Party up with your friends and jump into games straight away, no servers needed.
- Game Library: Hundreds of community-made games across every genre, always growing.
- One Click Play: No installing or subscribing – browse and jump into any game instantly.
- Constantly Updated: Like Garry’s Mod and Rust – big content updates on a fast cycle.
- Customization: Personalize your player with cosmetics that carry across every game.
- Game Editor: Create your own games in our intuitive editor with C# scripting and real-time hotloading.
- Play Fund: Creators earn money when people play their games.
- Publish to Steam: Coming soon… take your game standalone on Steam, royalty-free.
Key Links
You can learn more about the S&box Steam launch and see it in action in the video below.