Xenko Has Been Renamed to Stride

The Xenko game engine has been renamed to Stride. From now on, all source code, blogs and tutorials will use the name 'Stride' instead of 'Xenko'.

Why the name change? 🔗

Changing product names always is a lot of work and comes with some downsides. However, we would not do this if there weren't any good reasons for us to do so. Since 2019, xen2, has been trying to affiliate Xenko with the .NET Foundation, a non-profit organization (NPO).

There are various reasons for this:

• We wanted to let the community know that Xenko is completely and 100% free and open in its development. This also means that any donations should always be made 100% visible to the public. This also includes what and where the donation money is spent on. Joining the .NET Foundation would aid in visualizing how this money would be spent.
• Being able to tell possible investors/backers/companies that Xenko/Stride can be trusted. This can help with publicity and more funding.
• They also provide help for opensource projects in various areas.

This sounded great, but unfortunately, there was a massive drawback to this: as long as the project kept the name 'Xenko' (trademarked by Silicon Studio), it would be difficult to transfer to the .NET Foundation. After a lot of back and forth between Silicon Studio legal department, xen2 and the .NET Foundation, we didn't get any step closer to achieving our goals.

After several months without progress, we started to suggest the idea of a rename to the community. In the Discord server, we opened up the name change and logo suggestions to see how people would react and what their suggestions would be.

About 6 months later, several polls, logo proposal and a lot of brainstorming, we settled for the name: Stride.

New Stride Logo 🔗

The new Stride logo, designed by sebl (from schnellebuntebilder), was chosen after a process managed by Eideren consisting of several community votes. Also, tebjan is the one that came up with the name Stride. Many thanks to them, as well as to all the other people involved!

Without further ado, here it is:

Game Studio will use a red variant:

What does this mean for you? 🔗

• The Xenko launcher will ask to install Stride launcher.
• Stride will be available starting from version 4.0 (available shortly). This rename also applies to all websites, social media and documentation. It is possible that the name Xenko or its logo might still be drifting around somewhere in a screenshot here and there, but those will eventually be removed.
• Stride 4.0 can opens Xenko 3.1 projects and convert them automatically. Please don't forget to properly backup your projects, and report any issues you have during the automatic upgrade process.

What's next? 🔗

• Release Stride 4.0 within the next few days
• A new application to join the .NET Foundation
• A new effort to find new backers
• The new Youtube channel will be the new hub for video tutorials. We will start with recording videos for the C# beginner section. After that, we will look at new editor video tutorials and extend the C# tutorials.

Here are the new links that you should be using:

• Github: https://github.com/stride3d/stride
• Website: https://stride3d.net/
• Documentation: https://doc.stride3d.net/latest/en/manual/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/stridedotnet
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Stride3D

Final Notes 🔗

We would like to thank each and everyone involved in the long process of picking a new name, a new logo and other related media/art. A huge shoutout to xen2 for doing the renaming process.