Stride is a free and open-source 2D and 3D cross-platformgame engine originally developed by Silicon Studio. It can be used to create video games for PC and mobile devices, and virtual reality. Stride was originally made available by Silicon Studio under a dual-license model, available to anyone under GNU GPLv3, with alternative, for-pay license terms available for those for whom the GPL's copyleft terms are a barrier to adoption. However, on August 2, 2018, developer Virgile Bello announced on the Xenko blog that Silicon Studio has dropped support of the project and relicensed Xenko 3.0 under the MIT License. Unlike the prior dual-license arrangement where the engine was available as free and open-source software but the editor remained proprietary, under the new arrangement both the engine and the editor are available under the MIT License.
Functionality
Stride is a C# suite of tools to create games. It is also a full game engine with a customizable shader system intended for virtual reality game development. Its main tool is the Game Studio, a fully integrated environment that allows the user to import assets, create and arrange scenes using an Entity component system, assign scripts, build and run games. The game engine features a Physically-Based Rendering layered material editor, photorealistic postprocess effects, and tools such as a particle editor, a scene streaming system, a full tool-chain a sprite editor, a scripting editor and a UI engine. Additionally, it supports a nested prefab and archetype systems scaling along all editors and assets. Stride is also a cross-platform runtime supporting iOS, Android, Windows UWP, Linux, and PlayStation 4. It creates Visual Studio projects, allowing for easy scripting and debugging. Features include:
Stride was formerly known as Paradox, and later renamed to Xenko. Stride's first public mention was in September 2014. It went open-source on GitHub in October 2014. Scene editor and Physically Based Rendering material editor were announced in March 2015 and released in April 2015. Xenko beta version 1.8x was then released finally out of beta in February 2017. On March 1, 2017, Microsoft announced that Xenko would be included in their Xbox Creators Program and Major Nelson reporting that Xenko would be one of the supported game engines with "out of the box" support for UWP. In April 2017, Silicon Studio launched Xenko version 2.0 under a commercial proprietary license. In August 2018, Silicon Studio launched Xenko version 3.0 and announced the end of their support for the engine, shifting to a community supported model. On May 31, 2019, Silicon Studio open sourced their Starbreach Demo code and assets. On November 11, 2019 Xenko version 3.1 was released.
