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Wikipedia
Initial release: 2019
Stable release: May 2025
Repository
github.com/axmolengine/axmol
Platform Cross-platform
License MIT License
Website axmol.dev
Axmol Engine (/æksmoʊl/) is a free, open-source, cross-platform game engine designed for mobile devices, desktop, and Xbox, well-suited for 2D video games development.
It was launched in November 2019 as a fork of Cocos2d-x v4.0. As a result, Axmol Engine is a full C++ engine that supports Lua as a scripting language, and it's under MIT License.
Some details that differentiate Axmol Engine from other engines are that it doesn't have an official visual editor; the elements are organized in "scenes" and "nodes" in a scene graph, and they are moved through "actions", in the same way than Cocos2d-x or SpriteKit; and the memory management is done by Reference Counting, since the engine origins come directly from Cocos2d, written in Objective-C for iOS devices back in 2008.
Some of the features that Axmol Engine added over Cocos2d-x v4.0 are:
- C++20 support.
- Apple Silicon and Android x64 support.
- Windows x64 build support.
- WebAssembly support for web applications.
- Universal Windows Platform (UWP) support for Xbox consoles.
- Support for extensions like Spine, Live2D, or FairyGUI (among others) out of the box.
- MediaPlayer and Windows video player support.
- Mobile: iOS, Android
- Desktop: Windows, Linux, macOS, tvOS
- Console: Xbox (Universal Windows Platform)
- Web: WebAssembly
Architectures:
- iOS/tvOS (x64, arm64)
- Android (x86, x64, armv7, arm64)
- Windows (x86, x64)
- Linux (x64)
- OSX (x64, arm64)
- UWP (x64, arm64)
- Wasm32
Renderer backends:
- Metal for macOS, iOS and tvOS
- OpenGL 3.3+ for Linux, macOS and Win32
- OpenGL ES 2.0+ for Android
- OpenGL ES 3.0+ for iOS and tvOS
- ANGLE GLES 3.0+ for Win32 and UWP
- WebGL 2.0 (OpenGL ES 3.0): WASM
Cocos2d-x latest version, v4.0, was released in 2019 [1][2], and since then, Cocos recommend to start new projects in their newest engine [3], called Cocos Creator. Axmol Engine was then forked from the original Cocos2d-x v4.0 by halx99, a developer who has been making games in Cocos2d-x since 2013. By his words, "amidst a shifting focus by the official Cocos team towards Cocos Creator, I resolved that if they stepped back, I would continue to maintain the engine"[4]. The objective was to keep the original project updated and compatible with newer devices and technologies.
The name of the first version was "engine-v5" (as a continuation from Cocos2d-x V4.0), and ASTC support was added. Later, the name was changed to "cocos-re", then "ENGX", "axis", "axys", "adxe", and finally, "Axmol" was set as the definitive name in October 1st, 2022 [4].
The official release 1.0.0. of Axmol Engine was in 2023, with the following enhancements over Cocos2d-x:
- C++ Standard: Updated from C++11 to C++17.
- Platform Support: Added Windows x64 support and modernized GL loading via glad.
- Graphics Improvements: Expanded ASTC block size options, added ETC2 support, and integrated Google ANGLE as a GLES backend for broader Windows device compatibility.
- Extension Support: Included frameworks such as FairyGUI, Live2D, ImGui and more.
- Audio Unification: Standardized the audio library across platforms using OpenAL.
- CICD: Complete github actions for ci checks to ensure code quality.
Since then, the engine evolved adding many improvements. The complete list is in the engine's GitHub page.
Now, Axmol Engine is regarded by some media as the future of Cocos2d-x [5][6].
Some games made with Axmol Engine are:
- Cocos2d-x website https://www.cocos.com/en/cocos2dx-download
- Cocos2d-x Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocos2d
- Cocos2d-x gitHub page https://github.com/cocos2d/cocos2d-x#embrace-the-future-switch-to-cocos-creator-for-a-better-experience
- A message from the initiator of Axmol https://github.com/axmolengine/axmol/wiki/A-message-from-the-initiator-of-Axmol
- C++ Game Engines in 2025, GameFromScratch (min 27:37) https://youtu.be/IFe8oIf4bz4
- Code & Web https://www.codeandweb.com/texturepacker/knowledgebase/is-cocos2d-x-dead