Unity (game engine)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Unity, a game engine built by Unity Technologies, made its public debut in June 2005 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. Scott Forstall showed it running on Mac OS X. At the time it was a game engine for one operating system. Today the same software sits underneath games on phones, consoles and headsets, and underneath work that has nothing to do with games. How did a Mac-only program spread so far? Who ended up depending on it? And what happens when a company that built its reputation on being open to everyone changes the price of admission? This documentary follows those questions.

  91152

• 2. Platform By Platform

  ›

  A runner-up finish in 2006, in the Best Use of Mac OS X Graphics category of Apple's Apple Design Awards, was Unity's first public recognition. The engine still ran only on Mac OS X. Support for Microsoft Windows and web browsers came afterward.

  Unity 2.0 launched in 2007 with approximately 50 new features. DirectX support arrived, along with an optimized terrain engine for detailed 3D environments, real-time dynamic shadows, directional lights, spotlights and video playback. A version control system helped developers collaborate. A Networking Layer for multiplayer games was built on the User Datagram Protocol. It offered Network Address Translation, State Synchronization and Remote Procedure Calls.

  When Apple launched its App Store in 2008, Unity added support for the iPhone. In March 2009, Unity 2.5 brought editor support for Windows.

  Unity 3.0 launched in September 2010 and added Android support. It also expanded the engine's graphics for desktop computers and video game consoles. The release included Illuminate Labs' Beast Lightmap tool, deferred rendering, a built-in tree editor, native font rendering, automatic UV mapping and audio filters.

  By 2012, VentureBeat reported that more than 1.3 million developers were using Unity's tools for iOS, Android, console, PC and web-based games. It wrote, "Unity wants to be the engine for multi-platform games, period." A May 2012 survey by Game Developer magazine named Unity its top game engine for mobile platforms.

  In November 2012, Unity Technologies delivered Unity 4.0. It brought DirectX 11 and Adobe Flash support, an animation toolset called Mecanim, and access to a Linux preview.

  Facebook integrated a software development kit for Unity games in 2013. It let developers track advertising campaigns, link users from social media posts straight to specific parts of a game, and share in-game images easily. In 2016, Facebook developed a new PC gaming platform with Unity.

  1012141517

• 3. Democratizing Creation

  ›

  The Verge greeted the 2015 release of Unity 5 with a line about the company's founding aim: "Unity started with the goal of making game development universally accessible." The review added, "Unity 5 is a long-awaited step towards that future."

  The release improved lighting and audio. Through WebGL, developers could put games into compatible web browsers, and players needed no plug-ins. 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. Cinematic Image Effects were meant to keep Unity games from looking generic. In August 2015, Unity began offering an experimental and unsupported Linux editor build. Unity 5.6 later added new lighting and particle effects, performance gains, and native support for Nintendo Switch, Facebook Gameroom, Google Daydream and the Vulkan graphics API. Its 4K video player could run 360-degree videos for virtual reality.

  Easy access had a cost in some players' eyes. Some gamers criticized the flood of quickly made games from inexperienced developers on the Steam distribution platform. Former CEO John Riccitiello treated that as a side effect of success. He said, "If I had my way, I'd like to see 50 million people using Unity." He wanted high school and college kids and people outside the core industry to use it. He added, "I think it's sad that most people are consumers of technology and not creators."

  Price shaped access too. For its first ten years as a product, paid versions of Unity were sold outright. In 2016 the company moved to a subscription model. A free license covered personal use and smaller companies earning less than $100,000 a year, a limit later raised to $200,000. Paid subscriptions scaled with the revenue that games earned. They added professional tools such as analytics, performance analysis, error reporting and Cloud Build.

  Unity Pro was required above $200,000 in annual revenue. Console developers could instead get it through a Preferred Platform License from the console maker, bundled with that maker's SDK. In May 2016, Unity Plus arrived as a mid-range tier between Personal and Pro, aimed at "first-time commercial developers." In June 2021, the rules tightened. Anyone making games for PlayStation, Nintendo Switch or Xbox now needed Unity Pro or a Preferred Platform License Key, regardless of revenue. Sony and Nintendo supplied this in their SDKs, but Microsoft had yet to build that into its own.

  20215324100

• 4. Renaming The Releases

  ›

  In December 2016, Unity Technologies announced that version numbers would follow the year of release. The change matched a faster release schedule, and Unity 5.6 was followed by Unity 2017. That release featured a real-time graphics rendering engine, color grading, worldbuilding, live operations analytics and performance reporting.

  Unity 2017.2 showed plans beyond video games. Timeline let developers drag and drop animations into a game, and Cinemachine added a smart camera system. Autodesk's 3DS Max and Maya tools were integrated for smoother asset sharing.

  Unity 2018 introduced the Scriptable Render Pipeline. It included the High-Definition Rendering Pipeline for console and PC experiences. The Lightweight Rendering Pipeline, later renamed the Universal Render Pipeline, served mobile, virtual reality and augmented reality. Machine learning tools such as Imitation Learning let games learn from real player habits. The release also added support for Magic Leap and templates for new developers. Unity Hub arrived the same year to centralize installations, project creation and licenses, replacing manual version switching.

  In March 2018, Unity published its C# source code under a "reference-only" license that prohibits reuse and modification.

  June 2020 brought the Mixed and Augmented Reality Studio, called MARS, for rules-based generation of augmented reality applications. That month Unity also announced that its editor would support Apple Silicon, and a first beta shipped later that year. On the 9th of December 2020, it released Unity Forma, a tool for automotive and retail.

  Unity 2021 brought Bolt, a visual scripting system, plus a multiplayer library, faster Il2cpp runtime performance and volumetric clouds. Full Apple Silicon support came in Unity 2021.2, and Unity Hub gained it in version 3.0 in January 2022. Unity 2022 aimed at productivity, with shorter waits to enter play mode and import files. It also added visual search queries and multi-selection in the package manager. For 2D work, it revised sprite atlasing and added PSD file support and Delaunay tessellation for 2D physics.

  On the 16th of November 2023, Unity announced that the next version would be called Unity 6, returning to its earlier numbering. It launched on the 17th of October 2024 with generative AI tools called Unity Muse and Unity Sentis, new workflows for online multiplayer, and better performance for web projects.

  2730313448

• 5. Inside The Engine

  ›

  Boo, a programming language, was removed from Unity with the release of Unity 5. It had once sat beside UnityScript, a Boo-based take on JavaScript that was deprecated in August 2017, after Unity 2017.1. Both gave way to C#, now the primary scripting language through Mono, for plugins in the editor and for games themselves. The editor also offers drag and drop functionality.

  For 2D games, Unity imports sprites and provides an advanced 2D world renderer. For 3D games, it lets developers set texture compression, mipmaps and resolution for each supported platform. It handles bump mapping, reflection mapping, parallax mapping, screen space ambient occlusion, dynamic shadows from shadow maps, render-to-texture and full-screen post-processing. Developers choose between the High Definition Render Pipeline, the Universal Render Pipeline and the legacy built-in pipeline. All three are incompatible with one another, so Unity offers a tool to upgrade legacy shaders to the first two.

  The Unity Asset Store launched in 2010. Creators build and sell 2D and 3D assets and environments to other game makers there. By 2018, the store had seen approximately 40 million downloads.

  The editor runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, while the engine builds games for more than 19 platforms. Unity 2022.3 LTS officially supports iOS, iPadOS, Android, Android TV and tvOS. Desktop targets are Windows, Mac, Linux and ChromeOS. For the web it supports WebGL and WebGPU. Console targets include PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. Headset and augmented reality targets include Oculus, PlayStation VR and VR2, Google's ARCore, Apple Vision Pro, HoloLens and Magic Leap. Steam VR and Google Cardboard work through the Unity XR SDK.

  Some platforms have been dropped, among them Wii, Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation Vita, 3DS, Tizen, BlackBerry 10, Windows Phone 8, Gear VR, Daydream, Facebook Gameroom and Stadia. The browser plugin called Unity Web Player was deprecated in favor of WebGL. Since version 5, the WebGL bundle is compiled to JavaScript in two stages, translating C# to C++ and then to JavaScript.

  Nintendo once made Unity the default SDK for the Wii U, including a free copy with each developer license. Unity Technologies called that bundling of a third-party SDK an "industry first." In August 2023, Unity China announced a Chinese edition called Tuanjie Engine, based on Unity 2022 LTS, with support for Weixin Mini Game, OpenHarmony and AliOS.

  5554566695

• 6. Reach Beyond Games

  ›

  By 2020, software built with Unity was running on more than 1.5 billion devices. According to Unity, apps made with its engine account for 50 percent of all mobile games and are downloaded more than 3 billion times per month. Approximately 15,000 new projects are started daily. The Financial Times said the engine "powers some of the world's most lucrative mobile games." It named Pokémon Go and Activision's Call of Duty Mobile, along with Monument Valley, Beat Saber and Cuphead.

  Some early commercial Unity games appeared in 2007. They included Splume from Flashbang Studios, Magical Flying Pink Pony Game from Starscene Software, and Global Conflicts: Palestine from Serious Games Interactive.

  Unity has also been used for approximately 60 percent of augmented reality and virtual reality material. That includes approximately 90 percent on emerging augmented reality platforms such as Microsoft HoloLens, and 90 percent of Samsung Gear VR content. Fortune said Unity "dominates the virtual reality business."

  Researchers in deep reinforcement learning use Unity Machine Learning Agents to train agents inside Unity-made environments. The agents can act as virtual characters or robots that learn strategies for interacting with simulated real-world settings. The software is used to develop robots and self-driving cars. DeepMind, an Alphabet company, uses the engine to train artificial intelligence.

  In the 2010s, Unity Technologies pushed its real-time 3D platform into film and automotive work. Its first filmmaking experiment was Adam, a short film about a robot escaping from prison. Filmmaker Neill Blomkamp then partnered with Unity, and his Oats Studios used real-time rendering and Cinemachine to make Adam: The Mirror and Adam: The Prophet. At the 2017 Unite Europe conference in Amsterdam, Unity put filmmaking at the center, showing Cinemachine in Unity 2017.1.

  Disney Television Animation launched three shorts called Baymax Dreams in 2018, made with Unity. Disney also used the engine to create backgrounds for the 2019 film The Lion King. Automakers use it to build full-scale virtual models of new vehicles, create virtual assembly lines and train workers. Architecture, engineering and construction are further targets.

  On the 16th of December 2013, Unity Technologies Japan revealed an official mascot, Unity-chan, designed by its designer known as "ntny" as an open-source heroine character. Game data for the character was released in early 2014. Unity-chan can be used in secondary projects under certain licenses, and appears as a playable character in Runbow.

  6735376199

• 7. The Runtime Fee

  ›

  In 2015, when Unity moved to free and subscription models, Riccitiello said all users would "get the full power of Unity for free" and that there would be no royalties. Unreal Engine, by contrast, had recently switched to free distribution with royalties above a revenue threshold. That promise made the announcement of the 12th of September 2023 land hard.

  Unity said engine use would become subject to a royalty it called a "runtime fee," starting in January 2024. It would be calculated per installation and charged monthly once a product passed revenue and lifetime installation thresholds. Unity argued the fee would "allow creators to keep the ongoing financial gains from player engagement."

  Developers who had used Unity for years objected. They questioned how the fee would be calculated and enforced, and what it meant for demos, freemium games and bundles sold for charity. Unity clarified what counted as a chargeable installation and said the fee would not apply to charity games or bundles. Among Us developer Innersloth and Slay the Spire developer Mega Crit announced they would use other engines for future games. Mega Crit chose the Godot engine for Slay the Spire 2.

  An analysis by Ars Technica found that older versions of Unity's terms of service would let developers keep releasing software without the fee, as long as they did not update a project after the 1st of January 2024. Ars Technica also found that Unity had apparently removed a GitHub repository that tracked changes to its terms. Mega Crit accused Unity of doing so to apply the new financial model retroactively.

  Game Developer concluded that the changes were meant to push games with huge install bases, such as Genshin Impact, Subway Surfers and Hearthstone, toward Unity services in exchange for a fee reduction. It noted that the Operate Solutions division, which handles services like in-app purchases, was far more profitable than the Create division. It wrote, "The many indie developers who will be left by the roadside are completely incidental to Unity's goals, and are not going to be a significant factor in its future decision making." Gameindustry.biz called the move "self-combustion" and cited it as another example of enshittification.

  On the 22nd of September 2023, Unity issued revised terms. Unity Personal projects funded up to $200,000 would pay no fee, up from $100,000. Fees would apply only to games built with Unity 2024 and beyond, with nothing retroactive. The fee would be the lesser of 2.5% of monthly revenue or an amount calculated from monthly engagements, and both figures relied on self-reporting.

  Unity Technologies faced a 60% decline in its stock price over the year to May 2024, partly attributed to the policy. Among indie developers, use of Unity at the Global Game Jam fell from 61% in 2023 to 36% in 2024, and the GMTK Game Jam saw a similar drop. In September 2024, CEO Matthew Bromberg announced that the company was discontinuing the runtime fee model and would instead raise the price of existing plans each year.

  10051495048

• 8. A Flaw In Every Build

  ›

  In June 2025, researchers discovered a vulnerability, later catalogued as CVE-2025-59489, in games built with Unity versions from 2017 onward. It affected games on Android, Windows, macOS and Linux. Errors in command line argument processing meant an application could be made to load arbitrary libraries. The injected code ran with access to all of the application's data, at the same privilege level as the application itself.

  The flaw rated 8.4 out of 10 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System. Unity patched it on the 2nd of October 2025 and notified the public the following day. The company reported that it knew of no one who had used the exploit. The Unity editor itself was unaffected.

  Developers scrambled to patch their games. Microsoft delisted several of its games from storefronts, including Fallout Shelter and Pentiment, until patched versions were ready. Unity also released a patching tool that let users fix affected applications manually.

  10051495048