Godot

Godot is a full game engine for 2D, 3D, mobile, desktop, web, and console games, completely free with no revenue share, no per-seat licensing, no strings attached. After Unity's pricing fiasco in 2023, Godot became the go-to for indie developers who don't want to worry about their engine vendor changing the rules.

MIT license, C++. The editor runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Games can export to all those plus Android, iOS, and web. GDScript (Python-like language built for Godot) is the primary scripting language, with C# and C++ also supported. Built-in 2D and 3D physics, animation system, particle effects, tilemap editor, shader language, and visual scripting.

Fully free. Zero cost. No revenue share. No per-seat fees. No 'free until you make money' clause. MIT license means you can sell your game, modify the engine, and never owe anyone anything. Solo indie developers: this is your engine. Period. Small studios: Godot handles teams well with its scene-based architecture (fewer merge conflicts than Unity). Medium studios: viable for 2D and stylized 3D. AAA-scale 3D: Unreal is still ahead.

The catch: 3D capabilities are improving fast but still behind Unreal and Unity for photorealistic rendering. The asset marketplace is smaller. C# support exists but isn't as mature as GDScript. Console exports (Switch, PlayStation, Xbox) require third-party tools and console devkit access; Godot can't ship console export templates directly due to NDA requirements. For 2D games, there's no better option at any price.