MonoGame originated in December 2009 as a port of XNA to the iPhone, and was renamed and moved to GitHub in 2011. After Microsoft ended development of XNA in 2013, MonoGame continued as an independent open-source project, later adding 3D rendering and support for consoles including PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. Since September 2023, the project has been owned and stewarded by the MonoGame Foundation, a US-based non-profit organization that funds development through individual and corporate donations rather than subscription fees, royalties, or licensing costs. The framework's source code is distributed under the Microsoft Public License, with the exception of a few portions of the code.
MonoGame's long-established targets render graphics using DirectX on Windows and OpenGL elsewhere. Version 3.8.5, released in July 2026 after a public preview that began in late 2025, added a new native backend and two targets built on the newer Vulkan and DirectX 12 graphics APIs. Because MonoGame is an independent reimplementation of the XNA API rather than a copy of Microsoft's original source code, and because it has extended and modified that API over time rather than reproducing it exactly, developer Ethan Lee forked the project in 2013 into a stricter, accuracy-focused alternative called FNA. MonoGame is also used in academic and hobbyist settings to teach fundamental game programming concepts.
History
Origins in XNA (2004–2010)
Microsoft announced XNA, a set of tools and a managed runtime for game development, at the Game Developers Conference in March 2004, with a public preview of the toolset following in 2006. XNA became a popular platform for small and independent Windows and Xbox 360 developers and was used to create games such as Bastion and Terraria, but Microsoft never extended official support to mobile devices. This gap led to independent porting efforts: in 2009, Bill Reiss released SilverSprite, an open-source 2D framework for Windows Phone inspired by XNA, and José Antonio Leal de Farias combined code from SilverSprite and the community project Mono.XNA to create XNA Touch, a port of XNA aimed at the iPhone, released in December 2009. Several games built with XNA Touch reached the Apple App Store in 2010.
Formation of MonoGame (2011–2013)
In 2011, XNA Touch was renamed MonoGame and moved to GitHub, adding support for Android, Mac, Linux and OpenGL on Windows; Dominique Louis took over as the project's full-time lead. MonoGame 2.0, the first official release, followed in October 2011 with a downloadable version 0.7 that had been available from CodePlex. These early versions supported only 2D sprite-based games; the last purely 2D release was version 2.5.1 in June 2012. Support for DirectX 11, Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 was added later in 2012, the same year the MonoGame team was invited to present at Microsoft's Build conference.
In February 2013, Microsoft confirmed that it had no plans to release further versions of XNA, effectively ending official development of the toolkit that MonoGame reimplemented. MonoGame's Dominique Louis said the decision left thousands of XNA developers without an official path forward, and the project pledged to continue supporting them. Ouya console support was added to MonoGame in January 2013, and MonoGame 3.0 followed later that month, introducing 3D rendering support for the first time. Over the following months, the team extended the framework further beyond a strict XNA 4 reimplementation, adding features such as RenderTarget3D, support for multiple GameWindows, and a new cross-platform command line content building tool.
3D expansion and console support (2014–2022)
The first MonoGame titles on PlayStation 4 — TowerFall Ascension, Transistor and Mercenary Kings — were released in 2014, the year Tom Spilman and Steve Williams took over stewardship of the project and official PlayStation 4 developer access opened to all Sony-registered studios. Support for further consoles followed: MonoGame for PlayStation Vita was made available to Sony developers in July 2016 and MonoGame for Nintendo Switch to Nintendo developers in July 2017. MonoGame 3.7 was released in September 2018 and MonoGame 3.8 in August 2020, and PlayStation 5 support followed in July 2022 alongside MonoGame 3.8.1.
Nonprofit foundation and recent development (2023–present)
In September 2023, the MonoGame team announced plans to move the project's assets into a new non-profit foundation in order to secure its long-term governance and funding, following a period of upheaval elsewhere in the game engine industry. The resulting MonoGame Foundation was formed on September 29, 2023, and was recognized as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, retroactive to its founding, in October 2024.
MonoGame 3.8.2, released in August 2024 as the first release under the Foundation, moved the framework and its content tool to .NET 8 and dropped support for the Universal Windows Platform. Versions 3.8.3 and 3.8.4 followed in April and June 2025. Public previews of 3.8.5 began in late 2025, and the full release arrived on July 15, 2026. It introduced a new native backend (a single C/C++ library supplying platform-specific implementations, reducing the framework's dependence on third-party C# wrapper libraries such as OpenTK and SharpDX), two new targets, DesktopVK (using Vulkan) and WindowsDX12 (using Direct3D 12), a new code-based Content Builder, and development and runtime packages for ARM64 systems, including low-powered hardware such as the Raspberry Pi. A bug-fix release, 3.8.5.1, followed on August 14, 2026.
In July 2026, the Foundation announced the MonoGame Hub, a tool for creating and managing MonoGame projects from official templates, with early access initially limited to donors at or above a set contribution tier. MonoGame continues to be used by indie developers for cross-platform 2D and 3D games, including recent releases on Steam and modern consoles.
The project's published roadmap schedules 3.8.6 for the third quarter of 2026, focused on stabilizing the new desktop targets and modernizing the storage API; 3.8.7 for the fourth quarter, adding a new shader system and a native web platform and bringing the Hub to public release; and 3.8.8 for the first quarter of 2027, adding a new font system and native video support. A later 4.x series is described as the last to enforce the original XNA APIs, with a 5.x series intended to move beyond them.
Architecture
MonoGame implements the XNA 4 API across each platform it supports. On Windows, its established target renders graphics through DirectX using SharpDX, a .NET wrapper library for DirectX. On non-Microsoft platforms it instead uses OpenGL, accessed through the OpenTK library; mobile builds that once relied on the Xamarin runtime have moved onto its successor, .NET MAUI, after Microsoft ended support for Xamarin on May 1, 2024.
Version 3.8.5 (2026) began a move to a new native backend: a single C/C++ dynamic library that provides the platform-specific implementations, so that the C# side of the framework can stay platform-independent and native code can be shared across targets. The new DesktopVK target, which uses SDL2, Vulkan and FAudio, is intended to eventually replace DesktopGL with a single build for Windows, macOS and Linux; its Vulkan code was originally written for Google Stadia. The WindowsDX12 target builds on Direct3D 12 code first created as a bounty for Xbox One and Xbox Series support; it is compatible with Microsoft's Game Development Kit (GDK), allowing releases through the Microsoft Store or PC Game Pass, and the developers expect it to replace the Direct3D 11 target within a few years.
MonoGame's graphics capabilities come from OpenGL, OpenGL ES, DirectX, Vulkan or Direct3D 12 depending on platform. Since MonoGame version 3, the framework has targeted OpenGL 2, which added support for shaders and more advanced rendering; earlier releases such as version 2.5 used the more limited OpenGL 1.x. The 3.8.5 release also introduced a new Content Builder, in which a game's assets are built by a C# project maintained alongside the game rather than described in a data file; it is intended to replace the separate MGCB tool and MGCB Editor.
Content management and distribution follow the ContentManager model inherited from XNA 4, letting developers build and package game assets, such as textures, models, and audio, for their target platforms. Games can be developed in editors including Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code and JetBrains Rider.
Governance and funding
MonoGame is owned by the MonoGame Foundation, a non-profit corporation formed in Texas in September 2023 to direct the framework's future and promote game-development education. Under the Foundation's bylaws, the project is overseen by a volunteer board of between three and eleven directors, who are elected by the sitting board itself rather than by a wider membership; the bylaws designate the chair as chief executive officer and the president as executive director. As of September2026[update], the board has seven members: president Dean Ellis; chairman Dominique Louis, who became MonoGame's full-time project lead in 2011; corporate secretary Simon Jackson; treasurer Tom Spilman; and directors Christopher Whitley, Garrick Campsey and Vic Chelaru. Marko Jeremic, a former chairman, and Thomas Altenburger are listed as former board members.
The Foundation is funded through individual and corporate donations, including via GitHub, Patreon and PayPal, which support framework development, documentation, community events and general project infrastructure. In December 2025, it announced that ConcernedApe, the developer of Stardew Valley, had joined its existing premier sponsors. MonoGame remains free to use, with no subscription model, royalty payments, licensing costs or runtime fees.
Usage
Video games
MonoGame was originally created to bring XNA-style development to platforms Microsoft did not officially support, and it has since been used as the underlying framework for numerous independently developed games, first in 2D and later in 3D. Notable titles built with MonoGame include Bastion, Fez, Celeste, Stardew Valley, Terraria and Streets of Rage 4. A more complete, community-maintained list of games known to use the framework follows:
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.
Because MonoGame provides low-level building blocks rather than a visual editor or built-in scripting language, it has also been adopted in academic and hobbyist settings to teach fundamental game-programming concepts such as the game loop, sprite batching, and content pipelines. Instructional books such as Game Development with MonoGame (Apress, 2022) and long-running tutorial series from independent game-development sites have used the framework to teach 2D and 3D game programming in C#. The Foundation also publishes starter kits, including a 2D platformer, a 3D platformer and a 3D city builder.
Legal aspects
MonoGame is an independent reimplementation of Microsoft's XNA 4 API rather than a fork of Microsoft's own source code, having grown out of the community projects Mono.XNA and SilverSprite. Because MonoGame could not initially reuse Microsoft's copyrighted XNA reference documentation, contributors had to write original documentation from scratch; in 2022, Microsoft authorized the MonoGame project to reuse the former official XNA documentation, provided a copyright notice crediting Microsoft is included. MonoGame's willingness to extend and reinterpret the XNA API, rather than reproduce it with strict fidelity, later led developer Ethan Lee to fork the project around 2013 into a separate, accuracy-focused reimplementation named FNA.
↑"Console Access". MonoGame Documentation. Retrieved September 24, 2026.
↑"Windows 8, XNA and MonoGame". MSDN. Microsoft. August 1, 2012. Archived from the original on August 4, 2012. MonoGame is an Open Source implementation of the Microsoft XNA 4 Framework. The goal is to allow XNA developers on Windows & Windows Phone to port their games to the iOS, Android, Mac OS X, Linux with both PlayStation Suite and Windows 8 support currently under development.
123456"3.8.5 Release". MonoGame. MonoGame Foundation. July 15, 2026. Retrieved September 24, 2026.
12Torre, Charles; Spilman, Tom (November 2, 2012). "Monogame at Build 2012". MSDN Channel 9. Microsoft. Archived from the original on July 7, 2013. Retrieved May 11, 2013.
↑"Stay Safe". itch.io. Retrieved September 23, 2026. Made with: MonoGame, Pyxel Edit
↑"MonoGame". GitHub. MonoGame Foundation. Retrieved September 22, 2026. It has been successfully used to create games such as Streets of Rage 4, Carrion, Celeste, Stardew Valley, and many others.
↑"Tamashika". Showcase. MonoGame Foundation. Retrieved September 22, 2026.
