Unity 2021 Development Roadmap Released

Unity have just released their development plans for Unity in 2021 in a detailed blog post. There is an emphasis on providing stability and maturity to a tool-set that has been heavily in flux. There also seems to be an increased emphasis on legacy GameObject support, instead of the all-in approach with DOTS. There are three major areas of focus:

Graphics: Scriptable Render Pipeline and Tools 

We will mature our Universal Render Pipeline (URP) solution and stabilize the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP). Our long-term goal with our rendering pipeline is to have complete interoperability with all Unity features so there will be one way to build your scene with an ecosystem of tools to support users. 

Visual scripting 

In 2021, we will provide Bolt visual scripting as a core feature, built directly into Unity. As we do this, we will bring consistency across all our node-based development tools. We know it is key for a great user experience to unify the workflows of visual scripting with other node-based solutions. 

Multiplayer networking 

We will deliver a stable and supported netcode foundation. First, this means expanding the focus beyond the Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) netcode space to solve for current-Unity GameObjects. Second, we are committed to delivering full-stack solutions for key genres by building alongside the incredible talent in the open source software (OSS) multiplayer community. And finally (we heard you), multiplayer creation needs more than just netcode, so we plan to make a significant investment in tools, docs, and samples to make it easier to get started.

The first major release of Unity is Unity 2020 LTS releasing in Q1 2021 with the following features:

  • A long-term support (LTS) version of Unity 2020. A stabilized change-set from Unity 2020.1 and the upcoming 2020.2 releases.
  • Improvements specifically focused on quality of life, like reorderable arrays and lists in the inspector, improved inspector copy/paste, the ability to mark an object as “default parent” in the Hierarchy, and a long list of improvements to existing features and toolsets.
  • Continued focus on iteration speed, developer tooling, and performance improvements such as updates to IL2CPP to avoid unnecessary reconverting and recompiling code when there are no code changes.
  • Improvements to Asset Import stability and robustness.
  • SRP stabilization improvements for both URP and HDRP.
  • Support for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Apple silicon platforms.
  • Increased contributions and collaboration with the OSS multiplayer community.

You can learn more about the future of Unity in the video below.

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