MMORPG Sandbox Bitcraft Online Going Open Source
Clockwork Labs, a California based venture-backed game studio, is making its debut title, Bitcraft Online, fully open source so that it can be freely edited by anyone. The game itself is being released into Early Access on PC on May 29, 2025.
Bitcraft Online puts a focus on community, in terms of its overall ethos and the game itself. Players awaken in an untamed wilderness and, through survival crafting gameplay, and co-operation with other gamers, can build up settlements, economies, and more.
“BitCraft is a sandbox game, not only in the sense of an open, editable world, but also in its freeform character progression,” the developers said on the game’s official site.
“Players are not forced to choose a fixed profession or skill set and instead progress their character by practicing whichever skills they like. In addition to practicing crafting, building, farming, and many other skills, players can also become active in their society and contribute to the growth of infrastructure, cities, and empires.”
Build And Edit The World (And The Code)
Players in Bitcraft Online can mine and shape the terrain itself, as well as craft structures and items, with a strong emphasis on working together. However, Clockwork Labs felt like it could do more with the community in mind. In a blog post on the game’s site, the studio detailed how it was going open source for accessibility, collaboration, and giving back to players.
“We believe deeply in the genre of massively-multiplayer games and the unforgettable social experiences that these games can create, but the barrier to entry is simply too high to allow indie developers to experiment in the space. Building a single, scalable, editable world like BitCraft’s presents perhaps one of the most difficult technical challenges in server-side backends.”
“We believe that the BitCraft source code will provide both an example of how to build an MMO and an example of how to use SpacetimeDB to do so. That’s both a win for the developer community and for our platform.”
As for how this can actually impact the game, the options are myriad. It enables players to do things as straightforward as flag bugs, all the way through to forking (splitting off the code) into a completely separate game built on the core design of Bitcraft Online.
Make The Game Your Own
SpacetimeDB is Clockwork Lab’s multiplayer-focused code, although it’s technically based on the Rust programming language (although C# is also covered). As to how it actually works, Clockworks Labs put it best on the official GitHub page:
“Instead of deploying a web or game server that sits in between your clients and your database, your clients connect directly to the database and execute your application logic inside the database itself.”
“It’s actually similar to the idea of smart contracts, except that SpacetimeDB is a database, has nothing to do with blockchain, and is orders of magnitude faster than any smart contract system.”
Clockwork Labs acknowledge that making the game open source means it’s relinquishing a degree of control over its own product, but feel this is the best thing for its already growing community. The developers are also hoping that it can show other game studios that it’s possible to share a game with players in a new and exciting way.
“This is uncharted territory and we are essentially running an experiment. For this reason we’re not licensing or open sourcing the game’s assets – the art, music, and IP will still be protected for the time being. But all of the code that makes the game run will be made public.”
Clockwork Labs
The development team was founded in 2019, is comprised of industry professionals, and includes people who have worked with Ubisoft and Kakao (Chrono Odessy, Section 13). The studio is backed by top investors including Supercell and 1Up Ventures, and has the additional backing of David Helgason, founder of Unity Technologies, and Hilmar Pétursson, CEO of CCP Games (makers of EVE Online).
