Unity (game engine)

Unity is a cross-platform game engine developed by Unity Technologies, first announced and released in June 2005 at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a Mac OS X game engine. The engine has since been gradually extended to support a variety of desktop, mobile, console, augmented reality, and virtual reality platforms. It is particularly popular for iOS and Android mobile game development, is considered easy to use for beginner developers, and is popular for indie game development.

The engine can be used to create three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) games, as well as interactive simulations. The engine has been adopted by industries outside video gaming including film, automotive, architecture, engineering, construction, and the United States Armed Forces.

The Unity game engine was launched in 2005, aiming to "democratize" game development by making it accessible to more developers. It was shown at Worldwide Developers Conference 2005 by Scott Forstall on Mac OS X. The next year, Unity was named runner-up in the Best Use of Mac OS X Graphics category in Apple Inc.'s Apple Design Awards. Unity was initially released for Mac OS X, later adding support for Microsoft Windows and Web browsers.

Unity 2.0 launched in 2007 with approximately 50 new features. DirectX support was added in 2.0. The release included an optimized terrain engine for detailed 3D environments, real-time dynamic shadows, directional lights and spotlights, video playback, and other features. The release also added a version control system to allow developers to collaborate more easily. It included a Networking Layer for developers to create multiplayer games based on the User Datagram Protocol, offering Network Address Translation, State Synchronization, and Remote Procedure Calls. When Apple launched its App Store in 2008, Unity added support for the iPhone. Unity 2.5, released in March 2009, added editor support for Windows.

Unity 3.0 launched in September 2010 with features expanding the engine's graphics features for desktop computers and video game consoles. In addition to Android support, Unity 3 featured integration of Illuminate Labs' Beast Lightmap tool, deferred rendering, a built-in tree editor, native font rendering, automatic UV mapping, and audio filters, among other features. In 2012, VentureBeat wrote, "Few companies have contributed as much to the flowing of independently produced games as Unity Technologies. [...] More than 1.3 million developers are using its tools to create gee-whiz graphics in their iOS, Android, console, PC, and web-based games. Unity wants to be the engine for multi-platform games, period." A May 2012 survey by Game Developer magazine indicated Unity as its top game engine for mobile platforms.

In November 2012, Unity Technologies delivered Unity 4.0. This version added DirectX 11 and Adobe Flash support, new animation tools called Mecanim, and access to the Linux preview.

Facebook integrated a software development kit for games using the Unity game engine in 2013. This featured tools that allowed tracking advertising campaigns and deep linking, where users were directly linked from social media posts to specific portions within games, and easy in-game-image sharing. In 2016, Facebook developed a new PC gaming platform with Unity. Unity provided support for Facebook's gaming platforms, and Unity developers could more quickly export and publish games to Facebook.

The Verge said of 2015's Unity 5 release: "Unity started with the goal of making game development universally accessible. [...] Unity 5 is a long-awaited step towards that future." With Unity 5, the engine improved its lighting and audio. Through WebGL, Unity developers could add their games to compatible Web browsers with no plug-ins required for players. Unity 5.0 offered real-time global illumination, light mapping previews, Unity Cloud, a new audio system, and the Nvidia PhysX 3.3 physics engine. The fifth generation of the Unity engine also introduced Cinematic Image Effects to help make Unity games look less generic. Unity began offering an experimental and unsupported Linux editor build in August 2015. Unity 5.6 added new lighting and particle effects, updated the engine's overall performance, and added native support for Nintendo Switch, Facebook Gameroom, Google Daydream, and the Vulkan graphics API. It introduced a 4K video player capable of running 360-degree videos for virtual reality.