We are refreshing the timeline for Gaea 3 based on your feedback and world events.

Work-in-Progress. Gaea 3.0 alpha featuring new viewport and on-screen editor. NOTE: The software is still in development and this is not the final look.

Gaea 3.0 Early Access will start in July 2026. While the lead time has increased, we believe we will get to final form very quickly after EA begins. We estimate official release to be in September.

Triplanar Displacement + Baked GI lighting

Our dev team has been working hard. We’ve had to overcome time lost from closing our Dubai office, a decision we didn’t anticipate, but needed to execute due to regional and global developments. The unreliable nature of day-to-day events delayed the process by several weeks.

There are silver linings! We gained other ground.

We backported many small internal fixes from 3.0's engine into 2.3 for added stability. This means that as you look forward to 3.0, your production use in 2.3 will be a much better experience. We will continue to backport further XPU optimizations in Gaea 2.4 along with smaller quality-of-life features where possible.

Our research team (which works separately from the dev team) dove deeper into the new complex algorithms to ensure even more functionality and options for Gaea 3.0's new nodes and simulations.

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God Mode (Work-in-Progress). NOTE: Preview does not show layer-merging.

And our devs made great headway on God Mode for the Gaea 2.4 release in a few weeks. Expect Bleeding Edge early builds on the forums soon.

God Mode in 2.4 and 3.0 will be very similar. Gaea 3.0 will be able to add new things based on the new Engine, and Gaea 3.1 and 3.2 will introduce major new tools for God Mode.

State of Gaea 3.0

We have 4 internal milestones for Early Access (Beta) stability. Our internal beta team works on individual portions of the software as each gets integrated.

1. Revised Graph Architecture + Parity with Gaea 2.4.

Based on feedback and internal tests, we overhauled 50% of the graph to make it more responsive, reduce chances of errors, and increase interactivity. This includes a brand-new Search System that lets you search for new nodes to create, and existing nodes to navigate to, easier ways to connect to existing nodes and portals, and several other conveniences.

The graph looks and behaves the same way, but with a rewritten core, it will feel smoother than ever and give you new conveniences.

2. New 3D and 2D Viewports.

For years, Gaea relied on Unity for its 3D Visualization. However, with very high-end terrains, it was unable to provide the results we needed. For 3.0, we wrote our own viewport, including very low-level code to allow visualization of terrains up to 8K at high framerates. (16K in experimental mode.)

New workspace options in the Viewport. Customizable grid, overlays, helper objects for scale or position reference, and more.

This goes hand-in-hand with the exciting 8K previews in Gaea 3.

3. New Swarm and SCV Build Engine.

Our new engine provides up to 20% optimization in processing, thanks to an updated tech stack. In addition, the portable SCV (Standalone Construction Vehicle) Build Engine opens new avenues for faster builds, and fresh ways for bridges to interact quickly with Gaea.

Terrain Clipping, both in viewport and Mesh export.

The unique SCV engine also simplifies Gaea integration into your custom pipelines, building custom bridges, and more.

4. New Nodes, Simulations, and Design Tools.

Nodes and Simulations are usually built separately from the main application. Once the engine is running smoothly, they are brought into the central codebase. After that, design tools - like UI for making roads, triplanar displacement tools, or new gizmos - are created to make the nodes easier to use.

At this point, almost everything is in decent shape to start broader testing with the Early Access Program.

Development Progress Milestones

Milestone 1: 90%
Milestone 2: 80%
Milestone 3: 50%
Milestone 4: 60%

Beyond Specific Milestones

We are making over 125 improvements across the board - from UI to Search convenience to customizability and more.

For example, several power-users and studios told us they wanted to create reusable templates. Now, the new Startup Screen, which has been designed to prioritize file access, also features the new Create from Template... button.

In addition, power-users can modify parameters and settings in a compact way with optional new, draggable controls.

Early Access Plan

As EA begins, we plan to release 2 builds every week - Wednesdays and Fridays. Since Gaea is built on the existing solid framework of Gaea 2.4, we anticipate very fast turnarounds when it comes to addressing bugs and adding new features..

We have an internal timeline of 6-8 weeks to achieve production-ready status after Early Access release. With EA launching in July, we expect the first Production Ready build of Gaea to be available in September.

We will be updating the main website with more information about Gaea 3 soon.

PS. We have a surprise...

As a thank you for your patience, our devs have been working hard on weekends to bring a couple of "future" feature into the present in Gaea 3.0! We think you will be pleasantly surprised to get these in your terrain toolkit! ;)