Just in time for Christmas, Xenko 3.1 beta is out now!

One of the major change is turning the engine into separate NuGet packages, published on NuGet.org.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Xenko 3.1 loves NuGet!

Xenko was always a big proponent of NuGet: since first version, Xenko was distributed as a NuGet package.

However, due to limitations (hello packages.config and project.json!), we were leveraging NuGet more as a distribution medium than proper NuGet packages: Xenko 3.0 is still a monolithic single package and it would not work out of the box when referenced from Visual Studio without using Xenko Launcher and Game Studio.

Xenko 3.0 paved the way by making Xenko compatible with the new project system (game projects were referencing Xenko using a PackageReference ).

Today, Xenko 3.1 brings Xenko as a set of smaller NuGet package, each containing one assembly, with proper dependencies:

As a result, it is now possible to create a game project that references only the packages you want. Here are a few examples of “core” packages:

Xenko.Engine : allows you to use core engine runtime (including its dependencies)

: allows you to use core engine runtime (including its dependencies) Xenko.Core.Assets.CompilerApp : compile assets at build time

: compile assets at build time Xenko.Core.Mathematics or Xenko.Graphics : yes, if you want to make a custom project only using Xenko mathematics or graphics API without the full Xenko engine, you can!

or : yes, if you want to make a custom project only using Xenko mathematics or graphics API without the full Xenko engine, you can! Xenko.Core.Assets , Xenko.Presentation or Xenko.Quantum : all those piece of tech being used to build Xenko tooling are also available for reuse in other projects. Nothing prevents you from generating assets on the fly too!

Then, various parts of the engine are distributed as optional packages:

Xenko.Physics

Xenko.Particles

Xenko.UI

Xenko.SpriteStudio

Xenko.Video

If you don’t reference those packages, they won’t be packaged with your game either. In many situations, it results in a smaller packaged game and improved startup time.

Also, you are free to replace those functionalities with alternative libraries.

Coming soon

Xenko assets will be packed and distributed with NuGet automatically

Coming soon in next beta, C# projects containing Xenko assets will have those assets automatically NuGet packaged in a xenko folder.

As a result, you will soon be able to generate NuGet package containing Xenko assets out of the box from Visual Studio and publish them on NuGet.org for general consumption for other Xenko users.

We can’t wait to see what will come up!

Full switch to .NET Standard

Soon Xenko will support .NET Standard for most of its assemblies.

Xenko games will be able to run on .NET Core for Windows (Linux is already supported).