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 2023.2.14f1

  • Asset - Database: Crash in CollectManagedImportDependencyGetters inside OpenScene in batch mode (UUM-57742)
  • Asset - Database: Crash on UnityEditor.AssetDatabase:OpenAsset because assertion fails on prefabInstance.GetRootGameObject().IsValid() expression while opening a specific Scene (UUM-66207)
  • Asset Importers: Crash on ConvertBlenderToFBX while importing a specific .blend file (UUM-63758)
  • Audio Authoring: Crash on AudioUtil_CUSTOM_HasAudioCallback when exiting Play Mode while the Inspector is displaying a GameObject with a script attached (UUM-58481)
  • HD RP: Prefab preview thumbnails are not being rendered when a Project uses HDRP (UUM-60000)
  • HD RP: [AMD] Crash on GfxDeviceD3D12Base::DrawBuffersCommon when Baking Light with Virtual Offset on Probe Volumes (UUM-59522)
  • IAP: [Android] The Player crashes with a "JNI ERROR (app bug)" error when the global reference table gets overflowed by BillingClientStateListener (UUM-55105)
  • IL2CPP: [Android] Crash on Android when AndroidJavaProxy is calling from multiple threads (UUM-49357)
  • Input: Crash on InputDeviceIOCTL when closing Unity editor (UUM-10774)
  • Metal: [iOS] App crashes with out of memory exception in UnityGfxDeviceWorker when starting the app (UUM-55488)
  • Platform Audio: [Linux] No audio output when playing audio (UUM-53143)
  • Progressive Lightmapper: The Editor becomes unresponsive and memory allocation errors are spammed in the Console when Generating Lightning (UUM-58017)
  • RP Foundation: Stacked camera is not rendering when using custom post effects is done in PreRender PostRender and Camera is not in HDR (UUM-22444)
  • Scene Management: Crash on GameObject::QueryComponentByType when opening a project (UUM-58461)
  • UI Toolkit Framework: "TextureImporterInspector.OnInspectorGUI must call ApplyRevertGUI to avoid unexpected behaviour." thrown when selecting Asset then selecting and deselecting Texture 2D (UUM-35998)
  • WebRequest: UnityWebRequest crashes if invoked when player is quitting (UUM-63150)

2023.2.14f1 Release Notes

Features

  • Version Control: New tab view to list and manage locks

API Changes

  • Core: Added: API to force active set for APV. (UUM-64028)

Fixes

  • 2D: Fixed exception error when slicing Sprite after an Undo. (UUM-62818)
  • Android: Fixed freeze when opening Icons section of Player Settings. (UUM-61146)
  • Animation: Fixed crash when loading asset bundle with animation clip serialized before 2022.1. (UUM-63344)
  • Audio: Fixed ARC spamming warnings when being duplicated/renamed/editor opened if loop/time/trigger mode settings would cause an infinite number of clips. Also fixed the message to clearly state we automatically fix the time property. (UUM-55698)
  • Build Pipeline: Fixed a regression where mesh components are stripped if its shader is made of UsePass only references. (UUM-57201)
  • Build Pipeline: Fixed the build failure when switch platform and build player are called together. (UUM-54379)
  • Documentation: Fixed description for AudioSource.GetDSPBufferSize by pointing to the correct DSP buffer size setting. (UUM-52557)
  • Editor: Fixed case where closing a docked window could result in overlapping sibling windows. (UUM-41817)
  • Editor: Fixed context menu not showing up when right-clicking a UnityEvent in Inspector. (UUM-59240)
  • Editor: Fixed for Crash on NSException when the display dialog contains a long message containing multibyte characters which are clipped when the message is abbreviated by ellipses. (UUM-62757)
  • Editor: Fixed hyperlink color for light mode in the editor. (UUM-57288)
  • Editor: Fixed incorrect duplicate menu items being removed when menu system is updated. (UUM-14958)
  • Graphics: Fixed crash when importing an unsupported 2x2 mipmapped, BC-compressed asset created in an older version of Unity. (UUM-48520)
  • HDRP: Fixed an issue where HDRP shaders were not HLSL2021 compliant. (UUM-64747)
  • IL2CPP: Fixed build failure when using unary negation operator (-) or bitwise not operator (~) on a pointer type cast to a native integer (nint/nint). (UUM-62413)
  • IL2CPP: Fixed inclusion of file and line numbers when specified in the IL2CPP Stacktrace Information setting for a Server build. (UUM-59506)
  • IL2CPP: Fixed MemoryMappedFile on posix systems to query page size from the system, instead of hardcoding it. (UUM-54598)
  • macOS: Fixed memory spikes when macOS player is offscreen or minimized. (UUM-30049)
  • Mono: Fixed issue where custom client and server certificates were not correctly being validated by HttpClient. (UUM-57031)
  • Mono: Fixed race condition in ManagedWebSocket release of semaphore and buffer. (UUM-61544)
  • Particles: Fixed an issue where using GPU instanced mesh particles could result in visual corruption. (UUM-64297)
  • Scripting: Fixed crash when reflecting over all parameters on all methods in the UnityEngine assembly. (UUM-62295)
  • Serialization: Fixed errors when opening a Prefab with an overriden managed reference and Show Overrides is enabled. (UUM-46566)
  • uGUI: Fixed the virtual keyboard of InputField not closing upon Enter/Newline on Android. (UUM-57150)
  • UI Elements: Fixed an issue where where the ListView's toggle focus state to did not match IMGUI. (UUM-37800)
  • UI Elements: Fixed the disabled ListView's footer styling. (UUM-61636)
  • UI Elements: Fixed the keyboard navigation for ListView's foldout. (UUM-60999)
  • UI Elements: Fixed the recursive call that caused the stackoverflow for dynamic height collection view elements. (UUM-46701)
  • UI Elements: Fixed the runtime keyboard navigation for ListView. (UUM-61723)
  • UI Toolkit: Fixed an issue when pressing the delete key on a selected style sheet in the explore would not remove it. (UUM-36848)
  • Universal RP: Fixed an issue where keywords were incorrectly enabled/disabled when shadows were enabled in the URP Asset and "Transparent Receive Shadows" was disabled on the renderer. (UUM-64416)
  • Version Control: Fixed an issue where branch creations did not start from the latest changeset.
  • Version Control: Fixed an issue where user was not able to expand added item list after collapsing.
  • Version Control: Fixed Diff option unavailable for .prefab.
  • Version Control: Fixed DropdownField not working properly on a ModalUtility window on MacOS.
  • Version Control: Fixed finding changes operation being firing constantly.
  • Version Control: Fixed issue with existing checkout operations locking the workspace.
  • Version Control: Fixed layout error when switching checkout status in the inspector.
  • Version Control: Fixed Pending Changes context menu had the view file history greyed out for asset+meta.
  • Version Control: Fixed Preconfigured date format was not recognized as a valid DateTime.
  • Version Control: Fixed typo in locks tooltip.
  • Version Control: Fixed UI error when opening and closing multiple closable tabs.
  • Version Control: Removed obsolete content in package documentation.
  • Version Control: Replaced "plasticscm.com" by a "https://unity.com/solutions/version-control" in the package.json.
  • Version Control: Reviewed initialization and application lifecycle.
  • VFX Graph: Fixed pCache exporter insure color in linear space. (UUM-41837)
  • WebGL: Fixed Orientation Lock code to not crash when run on iOS Safari's new partially complete implementation of screen.orientation API. (UUM-49634)

Package changes in 2023.2.14f1

Packages updated

  • com.unity.2d.animation: 10.1.0 → 10.1.1
  • com.unity.2d.common: 9.0.3 → 9.0.4
  • com.unity.2d.psdimporter: 9.0.1 → 9.0.2
  • com.unity.2d.spriteshape: 10.0.2 → 10.0.3
  • com.unity.collab-proxy: 2.2.0 → 2.3.1
  • com.unity.ide.rider: 3.0.27 → 3.0.28

Packages added

  • com.unity.dt.app-ui@1.0.2