Russia allegedly plans to develop its own graphics engine for video games

According to recent rumours, Russia plans to develop its own graphics engine that could match Epic’s Unreal Engine. Despite the sanctions, the country allegedly wants to have a say in the development of video games. At the moment, these rumours are not officially confirmed. 

Because of its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has been recently at the centre of political events that have been widely reported about. Now, the country is also in the headlines of the gaming industry. This is because of the decision to create Russia’s own graphics engine for game development.

According to the internet rumours, it looks like Russian tech giants are working on a native game engine. In the last few days, the largest Russian tech companies have supposedly started talks with the government about developing a game engine. As for the upcoming technological innovations, important revelations have been made about the soon-to-be-announced GPU.

Own graphics engine for Russia

The quality of the graphics is increasingly demanded by players, so it’s not a surprise that Russia seeks to develop its own engine, as companies all around the world ceased their collaboration with the country in a response to its aggression in Ukraine.

However, it is very likely that setting up a national game engine will cost a lot of money. In fact, there is talk of billions of rubles needed to finance such a project. All of this is allegedly backed by several important suppliers who work in the country’s own digital services.

Video game industry pulls out of Russia over war

Since the beginning of the war, numerous companies have decided to pack up and withdraw from the Russian market, including game development studios. We’re talking about companies like Activision Blizzard, CD Project, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Epic Games and Bloober Team, which are all very important names in the video game industry. Nintendo has also decided to do its part and block all payments from Russian e-shops. Furthermore, Sony and Switch users were blocked from launching Gran Turismo 7.

According to IDG Consulting, the Russian video game market generated $3.4 billion in 2021 alone, which is not an insignificant number. The nation has seemingly recognized that it makes sense to position itself more independently as the sanctions imposed by the rest of the world have severely restricted the country’s economy. However, nothing has been confirmed at the moment, and we can only wait and see whether Russia will produce its own engine and if so, whether it will be able to compete with the likes of Unreal Engine or Unity.