daScript

Daslang, formerly daScript, is a scripting language built for games that refuse to pay the usual scripting tax. The problem it targets: most embeddable languages like Lua sit behind a marshaling layer, so every call between your C++ engine and your scripts copies and converts data. Daslang is statically typed and lays out its data to match C++, which means that interop cost largely disappears. For a game pushing thousands of script calls per frame, that is the difference between scripting being viable and being a bottleneck.

This is not a tool you install, it is a language you adopt. You embed the compiler into a C++ codebase, bind your native types, and wire it into your build, which is a real engineering investment. The payoff is flexibility in how you run it: an interpreter for fast iteration, ahead-of-time compilation to C++ for shipping, or an LLVM JIT, plus hot reload during development. It is backed by Gaijin Entertainment, the studio behind War Thunder, so it is proven in a shipping title rather than a side experiment.

It is BSD-3 licensed and entirely free, with no commercial tier. The real comparison is to other embeddable languages, not to any paid product. Lua and LuaJIT are the defaults most teams reach for, with AngelScript, Wren, and Squirrel as alternatives. Daslang earns its place specifically when that interop overhead is hurting you and you want static typing on top.

The catch is that this solves a problem most projects do not have. When Lua is fast enough, the static typing and tighter C++ integration are not worth the steeper learning curve and smaller community. Reach for it once you have measured the cost and Lua is the thing in your way.