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 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.[6]
The engine can be used to create three-dimensional (3D) and two-dimensional (2D) games, as well as interactive simulations and other experiences.[7][8] The engine has been adopted by industries outside video gaming, such as film, automotive, architecture, engineering, construction, and the United States Armed Forces.[9]
The Unity editor is supported on Windows, macOS, and the Linux platform, while the engine itself currently supports building games for more than 19 different platforms, including mobile, desktop, consoles, and virtual reality.[56][57] Unity 2020 LTS officially supports the following platforms:[58]
- Mobile platforms iOS,[59] Android[59] (Android TV[60]), tvOS;[61]
- Desktop platforms Windows[59] (Universal Windows Platform[62]), Mac,[10] Linux;[63]
- Web platform WebGL;[57]
- Console platforms PlayStation 4,[59] PlayStation 5,[64] Xbox One,[10] Xbox Series X/S,[65] Nintendo Switch;[59]
- Virtual/Extended reality platforms Oculus,[59] PlayStation VR,[66] Google’s ARCore,[67] Apple’s ARKit,[68] Windows Mixed Reality[69] (HoloLens[70]), Magic Leap,[71] and via Unity XR SDK[72] Steam VR,[73] Google Cardboard.[74
