You’d forgive any of the Roblox developers I spoke to at RDC 2026 for being a bit apprehensive about some of the changes the company is making to the platform. The announcement of Roblox Build and Roblox Reality, two AI game-building features that may fundamentally change the way games are made, certainly make a difference to these people’s lives and careers. There’ll be more competition from emerging games, a disruption to the way they currently do their work, and their players watching them closely to catch them out for using these tools. But none of the developers, especially the ones I spoke to, seem worried, despite opposing the features. In fact, they all trust the platform unconditionally.
In case you missed it, Roblox Build is a tool that allows users to AI generate a game in 15 minutes or less, using a single sentence in a LLM chat system. Roblox Reality, on the other hand, is a way to AI-generate additional weathers and textures, including snow, individual hairs, and more “photorealistic” design layers for objects. Naturally, these features come with their fair share of pros and cons, and with Gen Z being so opposed to generative AI, they’ve had a rocky reception.
Speaking to Adam Whitney of Last Level studios about the changes, he said, “I think if you look at a macro scale over the past 20 years, the changes that [Roblox] has made, the effort put into backward compatibility, the effort put into respecting creator’s visions… the track record of Roblox is always additive, rather than replacing or removing.”
Whitney believes these changes will be “additive”, as he’s just come to talk to me from a chat with Nick Tornow, SVP of Engine and Creator Engineering at Roblox, in part to ask him about whether the changes would replace the current systems developers use. “They actually want to continue to support everything forever,” Whitney says of their conversation, and tells me that it’s “reassuring to know that it’s not being forced in one particular direction… it doesn’t sound like they’re going to stop me from creating the way that I’ve always created.”
At this point, perhaps cynically, I offer the words, “At least, not yet”. Whitney hesitates for a moment before he replies.
“You would hope not. Past records make me feel optimistic. There’s always a risk that you get a bit locked in with a platform.” Adding onto that, he says that he’s trying to grow his own games studio, too. He doesn’t say so, but I assume this is for insurance.
Whitney’s optimism and trust in Roblox is shared. It even goes as far as to extend to the leaders and organizers of community on the platform itself. Oisín Sloan-Starr, who goes by Younite on Roblox, and works at companies like GeekOut and Studio Koi Koi, is known for helping out in the community. In the past, he’s created celebratory projects like Roliday and Creator Awards. He describes himself to me as being “very, very outspoken about generative AI,” but even after all the announcements at RDC 2026, his faith in the platform is genuine and unwavering.
Looking directly at me in the eyes, he says to me, very confidently, “I know that Roblox has everybody’s best interest in mind.” How can he know this? “I’m trying to think of the words. It’s not like [AI] gives me hope. But I don’t feel malice. I know that if you have an original and unique idea, that will always prevail. Especially with the Roblox algorithm, if people like your game a lot, they will play it.”
I’m still not convinced that the platform won’t switch up on its developers, slowly forcing them to use the tech more and more, but I speak to several other devs, who all say they have the same feeling. This includes Onnett, developer of Bee Swarm Simulator, who seems vehemently opposed to AI, but says something I find very profound on the subject: “I trust Roblox and they’ve done so well by me.”
Ultimately, I’m an outsider looking into this community – who am I to voice my scepticism? These are the people who live and breathe the games the make, and have been here far longer than I. Even as I speak with Whitney and Sloan-Starr about previous initiatives – including aborted attempts to make Roblox part of the Metaverse – and compare them to this, neither of them seem to falter.
If Roblox has made a misstep, it has course-corrected, says Whitney, and he believes that if the company leans too far into AI this time around, it’ll do the same thing. I’m starting to believe it, too. After all, it’s his voice, and those of the community at large, that are being heard.
