GameMaker is launching GMRT, a new modern runtime with source access

By Liam Dawe - 30 Apr 2026 at 9:15 am UTC

The popular game engine GameMaker continues advancing, with a new "GMRT" runtime that will give developers source access and much more.

GMRT is the future of GameMaker, a next-generation runtime for GameMaker that's much more flexible and powerful. They've said in the coming months it will come out of Beta for Desktop, with Mobile and Console to follow later in the year.

They've also now announced that for GMRT that the Desktop, Mobile, and Web source code will be available for all users to "access, modify, and build from". Not open source, but at least with source access developers can see a little more about what's going on and tweak it to their needs.

“GameMaker has always been about making game development as accessible as possible, whether you’re building your first game or shipping your tenth,” said Russell Kay, Head of GameMaker. “With GMRT, we’re making sure that’s true for bigger teams, more complex projects, and developers who’ve never written a line of GML. The engine grows with you now.”

With GMRT they're also improving the 3D support, they're developing tools to allow game developers to interface with GM projects via API and CLI and the CLU tools will be open source. More coding languages will also be supported with GMRT including JavaScript, TypeScript and C# later this year.

One bit some may not to happy on is the new AI integration. They're adding Claude Code, Anthropic's AI developer agent, but this seems to be specific to the CLI tooling and not the GameMaker UI directly.

Main Highlights:

New GM-CLI command-line toolchain for builds and automation.

Developers can work in their preferred environment without relying on the IDE.

Project files are now plain text, making Git/version control far cleaner.

Source-available runtime access coming for desktop, mobile and web in Q2.

JavaScript, TypeScript and C# support planned this year.

Improved 3D workflows, including glTF support.

See more in the press release and the main news post.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.

Tags: Game Dev, GameMaker, Misc

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About the author - Liam Dawe

I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can follow me personally on Mastodon [External Link].
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