Unity Game Engine lets you create real-time 3D projects for games, animation, film, architecture, engineering, manufacturing and construction. Unity includes tools to empower artists to create cinematic content and gameplay sequences without the need of an engineer.

Many high-profile games have been created using Unity, supporting multiple platforms including desktop, mobile, console and VR.

Is Unity free?

Unity offers a free Personal plan that includes all core features to create games and interactive experiences. It also includes support for Unity Ads and the in-app purchase plugin. You can download it and use Unity free of charge as long as your revenue (or funds raised in the last year) does not pass $100K.

Can I create AAA games with Unity?

Yes, you can. Unity has been used to create hundreds of popular games. Highlights include the likes of Among Us, Beat Saber, Genshin Impact, Pokémon Go, Super Mario Run, Iron Man VR, PC Building Simulator, Pillars of Eternity, Kerbal Space Program, Hearthstone, Temple Run, among many others.

Which is easier to use, Unity or Unreal Engine?

There is no right answer to that question. Both game engines are extremely robust and offer a fully featured free version to get you started. Both have strong communities in which you can participate and consult with. The general consensus at this stage is that Unity and Unreal Engine both are beginner friendly and won't require advanced programming knowledge for simple projects which will get the ball rolling as you learn.

Can I make money with Unity (free)?

Yes, you can create a game and legally sell it with the free version of Unity. You won't pay royalties or any revenue share unless you exceed sales of $100K in a year.

Can I create a game in Unity without coding?

Unity relies on the C# programming language and does require text-based programming. However, to be more welcoming to users with no coding experience, there is a "First-time Users" option that offers completed mini-games that you can edit and play around with, so you can get a better grasp at how the engine works. In that mode, Unity will guide you with step-by-step instructions to create your own tasks and build your own projects.

Features

Unity Personal

For beginners, students and hobbyists who want to explore and get started with Unity. Completely free --- no royalties, no credit card required. You fully own any content you create

Everything you need to get started

Unity Personal is a great place for beginners and hobbyists to get started. It includes access to all core game engine features, continuous updates, beta releases, and all publishing platforms.

Start creating

Move efficiently from prototyping to full production with a truly flexible editor and intuitive workflows supported by tons of tutorials and ready-made assets to guide your learning and development.

Work with the latest

Continuous updates allow you to develop with all the latest and most advanced features for high-end visuals, audio, animation, physics --- everything you need to make any kind of game.

Build for all audiences

Target more devices more easily --- with Unity, you can build once and deploy to the largest range of mobile, VR, desktop, Web, Console and TV platforms in the industry with a single click.

Note: You can download the latest version as well as the LTS (Long Term Support) version. The LTS stream is for users who wish to continue to develop and ship their games/content and stay on a stable version for an extended period. Note that Unity does not support downgrading a project to a previous version of the editor. However, you can import projects to a new version of the editor.

What's New

Known Issues in 2023.1.18f1

  • Asset Bundles: Editor crashes on vector_map ,assetbundle>
  • Culling: [Mobile] Player freezes on "UnityClassic::Baselib_SystemFutex_Wait" or silently crashes (UUM-41806)
  • GLES: [Linux][URP] Crash on GfxFramebufferGLES::Clear when entering the Play Mode when all Renderer Features are disabled, Native RenderPass and MainCamera's Depth Texture is enabled (UUM-49240)
  • IL2CPP: [Android] Crash on Android when AndroidJavaProxy is calling from multiple threads (UUM-49357)
  • Metal: [iOS] Rendering freezes when the orientation is changed (UUM-9480)
  • Platform Audio: Audio is delayed by ~0,5 sec after starting to play it in the Android/iOS Player (UUM-41494)
  • Serialization: Crash and or slow update when List items are reordered in the Inspector Window (UUM-46703)
  • Serialization: Editor Crashes on WalkTypeTreeComplete<:containsmanagedreferences> when a list with serialize reference fields is re-ordered (UUM-47108)'::2'::ismanagedreferencevisitor>
  • Text: Crash on Material::GetShader when the cache is pointing to an invalid material after domain reload (UUM-53663)
  • uGUI: Button triggers another Button when multiple Canvases are used in multiple windows (UUM-36255)
  • UnityTLS: UnityWebRequest performance drop when running multiple requests at once (UUM-49389)
  • Universal RP: Meshes are not rendered when building WindowsStandalonePlayer builds from the command line with "batchmode", "nographics" flags (UUM-47782)
  • Windows: Sometimes the wrong image is displayed when using Cursor.SetCursor in software mode (UUM-46718)
  • XR SRP: [Quest] Stutter/Frame Pacing with OculusRuntime.WaitToBeginFrame when the Player is built (UUM-27247)

2023.1.18f1 Release Notes

Changes

  • Version Control: Added button for organization owner/admins to upgrade to DevOps subscription.
  • Version Control: Included new decorators for retained & locked files.
  • Version Control: Updated description in the package.json, including an updated link to get started.

Fixes

  • 2D: Fixed High memory usage and crash on DynamicHeapAllocator::CreateTLSFBlock when opening project with Sprite Atlas V2 enabled. (UUM-43709)
  • Android: Fixed an issue where the preserved screen was displayed when using swipe for pop-up view. (UUM-48173)
  • Animation: Prevent UnityEditor.EditorCurveBinding.DiscreteCurve API from creating unsupported discrete curve bindings. (UUM-49567)
  • Audio: Fixed a bug where AudioClips loaded via UnityWebRequest would keep two copies of the data, which doubled the memory usage unnecessarily. This was the case for non-streaming AudioClips. (UUM-2391)
  • Audio: Fixed crash when resetting AudioSettings during async object loading. (UUM-10237)
  • Documentation: Fixed UUM-36369 for 2023.1: ScriptReference/UIElements.PopupWindow. (UUM-36369)
  • Documentation: Fixed UUM-43427 for 2023.1: ScriptReference/UIElements.ListView. (UUM-43427)
  • Documentation: Fixed UUM-46270 for 2023.1: ScriptReference/UIElements.EventBase. (UUM-46270)
  • Documentation: Fixed UUM-46272 for 2023.1: ScriptReference/UIElements.TwoPaneSplitView. (UUM-46272)
  • Editor: "ArgumentNullException" error in the Console when selecting certain ScriptableObjects and entering Play Mode. (UUM-39898)
  • Editor: "Char" values were overwritten when selecting multiple GameObjects. (UUM-49347)
  • Editor: Enum fields shown as Integer when serialized in a nested structure. (UUM-47081)
  • Editor: Fixed an editor crash that could sometimes be triggered when painting terrain details. (UUM-26884)
  • Editor: Fixed Area light sampling in lightmapper (improves convergence rate). (UUM-35492)
  • GI: Signify that light-baking api are editor only. (UUM-2731)
  • Graphics: Fixed time scale bug when previewing trails. (UUM-45881)
  • HDRP: Fixed layered lit displacement. (UUM-49812)
  • HDRP: New checkbox in surface options to allow materials to be excluded from temporal anti aliasing. The checkbox name is "RemoveFromTUAndAA". This checkbox is ideal for surfaces that contain texture scrolling that has to be neat and does not have velocity information.
  • For now, this checkbox is only exposed to transparent materials since they are the only ones that can fit a stencil bit for such operation. (UUM-37206)
  • Prefabs: Fixed the "Active" property in constraint components using the data from its scene data and using the value from its prefab data. (UUM-47009)
  • Scripting: Fixed an issue with custom script templates containing #ROOTNAMESPACEBEGIN# on their first line. (UUM-32235)
  • UI Toolkit: Fixed an issue where the attribute overrides would not be applied correctly across uxml templates. (UUM-49718)
  • UI Toolkit: Fixed NullReferenceExceptions in the UI Builder when changing style values and the element was set to display:None. (UUM-36707)
  • Version Control: Fixed failed operations when the workspace is already locked.
  • VFX Graph: Fixed error log raised by VFX analytics while building a project. (UUM-41321)

Package changes in 2023.1.18f1

Packages updated

  • com.unity.collab-proxy: 2.1.0 → 2.2.0
  • com.unity.mobile.notifications: 2.2.2 → 2.3.0