The Future of Game Development: A Perspective from Survios
By Alex Silkin, CTO & Co-founder of Survios
June 2025
From VR Beginnings to Multi-Platform Expansion
When we launched Survios back in 2013, we were part of a small group of technologists chasing the frontier of what VR could become. There was excitement, there was skepticism—and there was a deep sense that something transformative was beginning to unfold. That feeling hasn’t faded. If anything, it’s only grown stronger. Today, the forces reshaping game development—AI, cloud gaming, creator-driven tools, shifting platform dynamics—aren’t just disruptive. They’re redefining who gets to build games, how those games are made, and even what we consider a “game” to be.
At Survios, we cut our teeth on immersive VR titles like Creed: Rise to Glory and, most recently, Alien: Rogue Incursion. While we remain deeply invested in VR, we're now expanding that expertise into traditional "flat screen" games for platforms like PlayStation 5 and Steam. Developing for VR presents unique challenges—designing for immersion, intuitive motion controls, and user comfort in an entirely new medium. Flat screen development, by contrast, allows us to reach a broader audience in a well-established market, where players expect polish, graphical fidelity, and genre familiarity. The opportunity—and the challenge—is in striking a balance between meeting those expectations and bringing fresh, innovative ideas born from our VR roots.
The Rise of Specialization in Modern Game Development
But none of this work happens in a vacuum. Game development today is a deeply interdisciplinary effort. Where a solo developer once might have worn every hat—coding, art, sound—modern games require specialized teams working in tandem across dozens of disciplines. You have engineers focused on engines, gameplay systems, or AI; artists dedicated to concept design, environments, animation; designers shaping mechanics and narrative. Layer in production, QA, audio, and user research, and the process starts to resemble a film studio more than a traditional software team.
With larger teams, however, comes the challenge of alignment. It’s easy for disciplines to become siloed, each optimizing for their own goals. That’s why at Survios, we work hard to keep the player experience at the center of every decision. A gorgeous texture or technically clever system doesn’t matter if it doesn’t serve the moment. Every asset, feature, and mechanic must answer a simple question: does this make the game better for the player?
Indie Renaissance and the Democratization of Tools
At the same time, the democratization of development tools has sparked something of an indie renaissance. You no longer need a massive team to build something that looks—and even plays—like a AAA title. Engines like Unreal and Unity offer high-fidelity rendering out of the box, while asset stores provide a wealth of characters, environments, and systems ready for integration. With the right talent and vision, a small team can now produce something that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with major studio releases.
This shift has made the development landscape more competitive, less predictable—and far more exciting. Smaller teams can take creative risks that bigger studios, constrained by long production cycles and larger budgets, often can’t. That freedom breeds innovation, whether it’s through experimental mechanics, unique visual styles, or unconventional storytelling formats.
AI in Games: Buzzword or Breakthrough?
The rise of AI only accelerates this transformation. And yes, AI is a buzzword, but in games, it’s also a practical toolkit that’s already changing how we design, build, and ship experiences. There’s always been “AI” in games—pathfinding, behavior trees, navigation meshes. But now we’re merging that traditional logic-driven AI with the power of large language models. Suddenly, NPCs aren’t just reacting in pre-scripted ways. They can hold semi-dynamic conversations, adapt to player behavior, even improvise within the constraints of a game’s lore.
But there’s nuance here. Just because you can generate an NPC that talks like a human doesn’t mean it fits the game. You don’t want a medieval merchant in a fantasy RPG explaining quantum mechanics. That’s why things like system prompts and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) models are crucial—to constrain and ground the AI in the right context.
Still, the ability for players to ask open-ended questions and get immersive, in-character responses is a leap forward in believability. It also introduces design challenges. Too much freedom can overwhelm or distract players. We still need to guide the player’s path, even in a world where the rules are more flexible.
Streamlining Production with AI-Enhanced Tools
AI is also reshaping other parts of the development pipeline—facial animation, for example. Tools like NVIDIA’s Audio2Face can generate surprisingly realistic facial movement from nothing more than a voice recording. While it doesn’t quite match the fidelity of full performance capture, it’s dramatically faster and more cost-effective. We leveraged this tech in Alien: Rogue Incursion to breathe life into NPCs without the overhead of scheduling full facial capture sessions.
Unreal Engine’s ongoing efforts to democratize these tools—like their iPhone-compatible facial capture system—make high-quality solutions accessible even to smaller teams. It’s a shift that’s not just about saving time, but about unlocking creative possibilities across the board.
Unreal Engine 5.6 and the Power of Streaming Optimization
Speaking of Unreal, the 5.6 release marks a new chapter. Lumen and Nanite tend to get the spotlight—and rightly so. Lumen offers dynamic global illumination in real-time, eliminating the need for light baking and letting environments feel more responsive. Nanite removes the complexity of level-of-detail workflows, giving artists more time to focus on creativity instead of optimization hacks.
These changes speed up production and give developers more confidence in what they see in the editor being the final result. But for me, the most exciting parts of Unreal 5.6 are under the hood. Streaming optimizations—especially those co-developed with CD Projekt Red—are making large, seamless worlds more viable without performance hitches.
Moving heavy initialization tasks off the main game thread and onto secondary cores is a big win for CPU-bound scenarios. Pair that with faster object initialization and tighter streaming budget controls, and you get an engine that’s far more capable of supporting fast traversal, dense environments, and open-world designs without relying on loading screens or smoke-and-mirrors solutions.
Why Source Access Still Matters
Unreal also benefits from its semi-open model. Unlike Unity, Unreal gives developers full source code access. That’s been game-changing for us. When we were starting in VR, Unreal didn’t even support motion controllers natively. But because we had source access, we could modify the engine to do what we needed.
That flexibility let us build better, faster, and helped us solve problems before the engine officially supported our use case. That’s still true today—and it’s a big reason why so many studios, even those with proprietary engines, are migrating to Unreal.
User-Generated Content and Platform Ecosystems
Looking forward, we’re seeing a convergence between game engines and game platforms. Tools like Fortnite’s UEFN and Roblox’s creator tools mean anyone—literally anyone—can start making games. This is the final stage in the democratization cycle: not just giving people tools, but giving them a platform to distribute and monetize.
It's a shift as significant as YouTube was to film or TikTok to music. It’s the rise of the player-developer.
But this also creates tension. When you build content inside someone else’s ecosystem—be it Roblox, Fortnite, or Meta Horizon—you’re giving up control. You’re at the mercy of their rules, revenue shares, and roadmap. Then again, if you’re making a PlayStation or iOS game, you’re already dependent on platform holders for certification and distribution.
The difference now is reach. Platforms like Roblox or Fortnite give you instant access to a global, cross-device audience. For indie developers, that’s a trade-off many are willing to make.
The Digital Shift and Discoverability Challenges
The move away from physical media was a turning point for indie growth. It removed the barriers of manufacturing, inventory, and distribution—allowing smaller studios to reach players directly. But that same accessibility has led to saturated digital storefronts. Competing for attention alongside AAA releases is tough, and discoverability has become one of the biggest challenges in the industry. Some developers even resort to questionable tactics, like mimicking the names of popular titles, just to get noticed.
Still, I don’t believe physical media will disappear entirely. Like vinyl records or Blu-ray collectors, there will always be a niche audience that values the tangible. But with the rise of disc-less consoles, cloud gaming, and digital licensing, it’s clear that the mainstream future is firmly digital.
New Economies and Emerging Creators
One thing we’re watching closely is user-generated content and the secondary economies forming around it. Whether it’s selling skins on ARK or mods on Steam, there’s a whole new creative class emerging within the game ecosystem. Players are now creators, businesses, even influencers.
That’s changing not only how we build games, but how we support them post-launch. It’s not just about keeping players engaged. It’s about enabling them to contribute meaningfully to the world you’ve created.
Preparing for What’s Next
All of this points to a future where adaptability isn’t just valuable—it’s essential. Developers must be ready to work across multiple engines, optimize for a range of platforms, and fluidly shift between standalone games and ecosystem-based content. The skills honed today through modding in Fortnite or building in Roblox are laying the groundwork for the next generation of creators.
At Survios, we’re embracing that future head-on. Whether it’s pushing the boundaries of VR, expanding into flat screen games, exploring AI-enhanced interactivity, or adopting new distribution models, our mission remains the same: to build great experiences that put players first. The tech will evolve. So will the platforms and business models. But our guiding principle—crafting experiences that resonate—won’t change.
And we know we’re not alone in that mission. What makes this industry so special is the global community of developers who pour their heart and soul into the games they create. The most rewarding part of this work is hearing how those games bring players joy, comfort, challenge, and connection. Game development is a collaborative craft, and you can feel that spirit at events like GDC—where knowledge is shared freely and passion is infectious.
The landscape will keep shifting, but one constant remains: we’re in this together. And as long as we continue supporting each other and staying grounded in what matters most—the player—we’ll keep building a stronger, healthier industry for everyone who calls it home.
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