The 2023 Unity Runtime Fee episode pushed thousands of indie developers to reconsider their engine choice. Three years later, the question is more nuanced than the headlines suggested. Unity walked back the changes, Godot took advantage of the moment to grow significantly, and Unreal continued to dominate high-fidelity work. Indie studios in 2026 have a real choice for the first time in a decade.
I have spent 12 years in game development, including a tenure as Mobile Team on RuneScape Mobile at Jagex. We are a Unity-specialist studio that works with indie clients on contracts from £20k upwards: solo developers building first commercial titles, two- and three-person teams shipping their second or third game, and small teams with seed funding building toward a Steam launch. We picked Unity deliberately and we will say upfront where that lens does and does not serve you. The advice below is what I tell indie clients during scoping calls when they ask whether they have made the right engine choice.
This is not a feature checklist. It is the engine question viewed through the constraints that actually matter for indies: cost, scope risk, hiring at small scale, asset ecosystems, and the licence terms that survive the next downturn.
