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s&box

s&box is a modern game engine, built on Valve's Source 2 and the latest .NET technology, it provides a modern intuitive editor for creating games.

If your goal is to create games using s&box, please start with getting started guide. This repository is for building the engine from source for those who want to contribute to the development of the engine.

Getting the engine

Steam

You can download and install the s&box editor directly from Steam.

Compiling from source

This repository contains the C# engine, editor, tooling and game content. The native Source 2 core is distributed as prebuilt binaries that setup downloads for your platform, so no C++ toolchain is needed.

Platform	Setup	Notes
Windows 10 / 11 (x64)	Setup.bat
Linux (x64)	./Setup.sh	Binaries target the Steam Linux Runtime, most distros should work.
macOS (Apple Silicon)	./Setup.sh	Intel Macs are not supported.

Prerequisites

• Git
• .NET 10 SDK
• An IDE for the C# code is recommended: Visual Studio 2026 or Rider on Windows, Rider or VS Code on Linux and macOS.

Setup

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public.git
cd sbox-public

# Windows
Setup.bat

# Linux / macOS
./Setup.sh

Once setup completes, the game (sbox) and editor (sbox-dev.exe) run from the game folder.

Staying up to date

Pulling on Git will run a hook that fetches any new native binaries or content that changed and regenerates the interop bindings. Build the C# code from your IDE as usual, or rerun Setup.bat for a full incremental rebuild including shaders and content.

Contributing

If you would like to contribute to the engine, please see the contributing guide.

If you want to report bugs or request new features, see sbox-issues.

Documentation

Full documentation, tutorials, and API references are available at sbox.game/dev/.

License

The s&box engine source code is licensed under the MIT License.

Certain native binaries in game/bin are not covered by the MIT license. These binaries are distributed under the s&box EULA. You must agree to the terms of the EULA to use them.

This project includes third-party components that are separately licensed. Those components are not covered by the MIT license above and remain subject to their original licenses as indicated in game/thirdpartylegalnotices.