We are planning a new 3D asset conversion tool for GEM Engine to replace the current 3ds Max–dependent workflow based on GemExporter.

At the moment, 3D asset export to GEM Engine relies on GemExporter, which is tied to specific 3ds Max versions and is difficult to maintain and install due to compatibility issues introduced with each new 3ds Max release or update.

Our goal is to move to a software-agnostic solution that allows assets created in any 3D software to be converted into GEM Engine runtime assets using widely adopted, industry-standard formats such as FBX.

This survey will help us decide how to build this tool and which features matter most. Your answers will directly influence our development decisions.

Please answer this survey and share it with fellow modders, 3D artists, and developers who work with GEM Engine or similar pipelines. We are especially interested in different perspectives and practical suggestions.

Survey: https://forms.gle/yWCPwssgRdZckh9r7

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For a long time, the GEM Editor shipped with only one language. English was not just the default language; it was the only option. Interface text was embedded directly in the editor’s logic, so titles, menus, buttons, and context actions all lived inside the code.

The game already supports external localization packages, but the editor did not. There was no way to add a new language, adjust existing text, or distribute localization files. Localization was not simply missing. It had never been part of the editor’s design, so fixing it meant changing the underlying structure.

A lot of development happens before anything looks different. Systems get reworked, assumptions get removed, and issues appear only after earlier pieces are in place. That kind of work rarely draws attention, but it adds up.

To remove hardcoded text, language had to be separated from logic across the editor and its subsystems. It was less straightforward than it sounds. Many embedded strings were tied to behavior in ways that were not immediately visible, and some dependencies only surfaced after earlier refactors were already stable.

Rather than building an editor-only approach, the localization system was rebuilt around the same package structure used by the game. Language files are now external, loaded at runtime, and organized as proper localization packages. This keeps the editor aligned with the rest of the pipeline and avoids duplicating systems we already maintain.

Localization files can now be created, modified, and distributed independently by developers or by the community. Most of these changes are not obvious during everyday use, but the underlying limitations are gone. The editor can also support as many languages as needed, provided the text is translated and proofread.

On July 17, 2025, Best Way and Beiai Societies jointly announced a Chinese localization for the editor as part of the plans for 1937: Songhu Defence Line. It’s been some time since Beiai Societies began working on the Chinese localization, while we focused on prototyping additional languages to validate the technical side.

The rollout is gradual and begins with core editor UI elements, including titles, buttons, menus, context actions, and frequently used components such as Properties. Machine translation is being used intentionally for now. It serves a technical purpose and helps validate real-world behavior such as layout, encoding, fonts, and consistency across the editor. For now, English remains the default while stability, coverage, and text quality improve.

The editor is now in a place where localization is possible, extensible, and maintainable. It may not change how the editor feels today, but it changes what can be done with it tomorrow. Bear in mind, the screenshots shown at this stage reflect work in progress. They demonstrate the system operating, not a finalized interface or localization.

See you in 2026!
Best Way

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Another year of war, and another year of fighting for survival, dignity, liberty, and freedom. Another year of trying to keep our heads high and preserve what makes us Ukrainians, our identity, our traditions, and our core values. 2025 marked the fourth year of the war. Another year that began with family, friends, colleagues — people close to us — but ended with some of them gone, carried away into the winter winds. Winter strikes mercilessly. It grips the innocent with cold hands, day and night. Yet there is always hope, the warm light of a candle burning in the heart of every Ukrainian, waiting for a better day.

Air raids, frequent power outages, and the pain of saying goodbye to those who left an empty place in our hearts forever, none of it broke our will to keep moving forward, no matter how injured or heartbroken we are. This year was also special for us as a Ukrainian video game company. We started again from scratch, rethought where we stand, and made hard decisions to pave the way toward a better future.

After years of silence and isolation, we built our own Discord community in 2025. We recovered and uploaded archived videos to our YouTube channel, organized its content, and created our own X account. With your help, we gave new life to our first title, Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, releasing six updates, one after the other. We also supported Beiei Societies in the development of 1937: Songhu Defence Line.

Above all, we endured the difficult chapter of Men of War II and began a new project, closer to our roots, and with more freedom to do what we believe we should. At the same time, we started building a smoother, easier path for GEM engine enthusiasts, from mod makers to full developers. We worked on Procedural Content Generation, Spline Tool, and many other behind-the-scenes additions.

We carefully examined the technical debt we’ve been carrying for years and began paying it down, so we can give the engine’s iron horse the blazing-hot breath of the old days once again. None of this was easy. None of it would have been possible alone, without our fans and supporters.

2025 has been an eventful year, one of clearing old dust, meeting new faces and old ones, and renewing friendships.

For us, 2026 isn’t just a new year. It’s the year we take the necessary steps to push player experience forward, confidently, even if slowly. It’s a year we’ve planned carefully, and we intend to make the most of every moment. We’re under no illusions, this journey will bring its share of difficulties and setbacks. Still, we hope it will be a year of serious advancements in the GEM engine, pushing the boundaries of what strategy games can be.

We also want to express our unwavering support for those who left the warmth and comfort of their homes to keep us safer, giving us the chance to be here through their sacrifice. May they return home safe and sound to their families and loved ones soon. May this New Year bring Ukraine closer to peace and bring all our people closer to home.

From the bottom of our hearts, we wish nothing but the best for our community, our friends, our families, and our colleagues across the video game industry, no matter how near or how far. We wish you a New Year filled with good health and happiness, peaceful mornings, cozy evenings, and meaningful improvements in your life. May you find calm in your mind, strength in your body, warmth at home, steady progress, and lovely surprises along the way.

Merry Christmas & have a Happy New Year!

Warm wishes,
Best Way

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Hello Everyone!

We’ve prepared a summary of the Q&A session from the November 1, 2025, community event on the Best Way Discord. If you were absent, this is the TLDR of the Q&As.

Q: What’s up with the MoWII patch? When can we expect it? What particular changes are planned?

Skael: “The current status of the MoWII patch is that its development is being handled internally on our side. However, releasing an update for a game as large and complex as MoWII requires a significant amount of time and resources, and without external funding, those are currently limited. We are looking into available options to make it happen.”

Q: Will there be a function that allows RMB for giving commands in Soldiers, similar to more recent GEM engine titles?

Skael: “We hope to add this feature in the future, along with other patches. We’re currently gathering the players’ feedback. We might be able to possibly do it in the next patch.”
Nobu: “Currently, there’s a workaround. It’s feasible to manually modify the `keys` file to modify the RMB and LMB functions.” (The file is located in this directory: C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Soldiers Heroes of World War 2\profiles\player)

Q: Are you working on an unannounced project? What will it be about? Any idea or insight?

Skael: “We’re currently working on a new project. We’ll reveal more information about it eventually.”

Q: Are you working on a new Men of War project?

Nobu: “We’re not working on a new Men of War, but we’re definitely working on a new project. It will be a different project than Men of War II, and more familiar to players of the Men of War franchise. For the other details, I’ll leave it to Skael to explain.”
Skael: “It will be a very different game from Men of War II. We have a lot of interesting stuff already at hand. But we’ll wait until we’re ready to make a full announcement.”

Q: Is the new project a strategy game or something completely different?

Skael: “It’s a strategy game.”

Q: I don’t know how much you can share, but I wanna know, will there be a direct control feature?

Skael: “Sure, why should we remove it? Players like it, and we’ll continue to keep it and improve it.”

Q: In Men of War II, the vehicle suspension barely works when the vehicles pass over obstacles. It’s more noticeable on tanks, but not much on other vehicles. Players often compare it to the Gate of Hell. Is it going to be improved?

Skael: “Wait for our next project. There’ll be a lot of surprises.”
Nobu: “We already shared the news about having new physics for the new project. We can’t share anything at the moment since we’re in early stages, but it will definitely be much more enjoyable.”

Q: It’s not possible to rotate bunkers in Men of War II when they are being placed. When can we expect a fix?

Nobu: “You can actually rotate bunkers when you are placing them. Use the scroll wheel to rotate them before placing them.”

Q: Are there any plans for Faces of War or Men of War to see any kind of support, as it happened with Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, considering they were also developed by Best Way?

Skael: “We’ll be happy to do that. We want to secure funds for it. Currently, the Soldiers project was almost a charity for us. We received a small amount of money from the new sales, but a lot of players already own the game. We’ll try to figure out at least how we can cover our expenses, and if we find a way, we’ll be glad to update Faces of War and Men of War, and even make a remake.”
Community Member: (surprised) “A remake?”
Skael: “Yes, if players want it.”
Community Member: “People want it now, but it seems you don’t have the manpower or enough money for it.”
Nobu: “Easy, we’ll print money, and all problems will be fixed!” (It’s a joke, guys!)

Q: Will it be possible to have an update on Assault Squad 2?

Skael: “We can’t give any promises on behalf of other developers.”
Nobu: “This is the project of another company. They have the discretion to decide about it. Also, the game has a publisher, so it needs a high level of coordination between the involved parties. It’s not up to us to make such decisions.”

Q: Were there any cancelled Face of War, Men of War, or Soldiers expansions?

Skael: “No, there were no canceled expansions.”
Nobu: “Players are curious about the Japan files in Soldiers.”
Skael: “This was not really an expansion. There was an idea to add them alongside the rest of the content of the project.”

Q: Some vehicles can run over buildings in Men of War II, but not go over some trenches. How does it work?

Skael: “They can, but perhaps it’s related to pathfinding settings and pathing preferences.”

Q: Is the next project going to be historical or non-historical?

Skael: “It will be historical in some details and non-historical in others. We made a very interesting choice, which we’ll reveal later.”

Q: Will there be any dynamic campaigns in the new project?

Skael: “We’ll make it eventually, but at the start, there’ll be no dynamic campaign. It’s something that we’ll add later.”

Q: In Men of War II, some squads can't be split. This is inconvenient for micromanagement. Will there be a change?

Skael: “In the patch for Men of War II, we’ll make those squads splittable. We also understand that people don’t like them, so there won’t be any AI squads (unsplittable) in the next project.”

Q: Will there be some kind of random map generator in the next project?

Skael: “We’re putting a lot of work into the PCG tech. It has gone well so far and will eventually allow us to have completely randomly generated maps. Currently, the PCG can generate some parts of the map automatically. We already have good results, but it’s not the generation of the whole map from scratch. But we hope to eventually make it in a way that it generates the whole map automatically.”

Q: Does PCG make mapmaking easier in the editor?

Skael: “Sure. That’s our goal to make map creation a more fluid and faster process.”

Q: For the next project, do you consider making the direct control TPS/FPS capable?

Skael: “We’ll certainly create TPS for the next project.”
Community Member: “Like GoH?”
Skael: “Even better, I believe.”
Community Member: “Even better? We’ll see.”
Nobu: “At the end of the day, it always comes down to priorities. As Skael often says, everything is possible, but time, resources, and manpower serve as our limiting factors. We can accomplish many things and enhance numerous aspects beyond the current status, but it's simply not feasible to address or improve everything all at once. Bear in mind that we’re still a very small game studio.”

Q: Are you using an in-house engine? Is it your engine?

Skael: “Yes, Gem RTS.”
Nobu: “The next project will use an improved version of GEM RTS. But it’s definitely a long way, not something that will happen in the near future.”

Q: Why use the Gem engine? Why not Unreal?

Skael: “Having our own engine is a double-edged sword. On one hand, we can do whatever we want, and on the other hand, there’s no big studio behind the engine, such as Epic Games, to do something for us free of charge. We have to do everything by ourselves.”

Q: Will there be an upgrade in graphics of the next project, especially compared to previous titles?

Skael: “100%. The graphics will be better than Men of War II.”

Q: Are you using AI for your new project?

Skael: “Not at all for now, but maybe we’ll have to. Maybe for draft voice-overs for internal tests.”
Nobu: “So far, just like Skael said, we haven’t decided to use any AI-generated content. But we may use some AI-generated content to satisfy our internal testing needs.”

Q: How do we know, Nobu, that you aren’t the AI in testing and developed by the Best Way?

Skael: “There’s no chance to determine that, because Nobu’s AI is so cool that you cannot tell him apart from a real human.”
Community Member: “I think people don’t have an issue with AI if it’s internally developed and internally trained. People don’t like it when it scrapes the entire internet and just scrapes other people’s work, then it becomes an issue.”
Nobu: “Maybe Best Way scraped me and then cloned me again!”

Q: Have you considered making a game on a well-known franchise, like Warhammer, Star Wars, or Command and Conquer?

Skael: “Yes, we considered that. It would be fun to work on a well-known franchise, but since we’re a small team, we can’t have two projects at the same time.”

Q: How small is the team?

Skael: “About 30 people. Not an indie team, but also not a AA or AAA team.”

Q: Will there be more of these community events? It was fun?

Nobu: “We might not do it regularly due to the volume of work of our team, but we hope to organize more events to play along with the community.”

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We have a community event tomorrow, Saturday, November 1, 2025, at 1 PM UTC on Best Way Discord.

Q&A with developers + Playing PvP in Soldiers

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