Unity have just released Unity 2022 LTS. This is an LTS or Long Term Support release of the Unity game engine, meaning it will continue to see patches and updates for two years and is therefore the recommended version to use if you are starting a project today.
There are several new features in the Unity 2022 LTS although perhaps the biggest and longest awaited feature is the DOTS, or Data Oriented Technology Stack is now considered ready for production use. DOTS was first announced in the previous decade and has a troubled development. It consists of three key components, the Jobs System, the Burst Compiler and ECS, or the Entity Component System. Now all these major systems are considered ready for use in prime time. Additionally a DOTS compatible networking layer, Netcode for Entities is also reaching production ready status in this release.
There are several other features in this release including:
- HDRP Pipeline Improvements:
- New Water System
- Cloud Rendering Improvements
- Volumetric Materials for advanced fog and volumetric effects
- URP Improvements:
- Forward + Rendering
- LOD Crossfades
- Temporal Anti Aliasing
- Decal Layers
- Built-In Converter for Standard to URP pipeline assets
- New Spline package
- Various other improvements, features and fixes
Key Links
Unity Entity Component System Samples
You can learn more about the Unity 2022 LTS release and see the new Water System in action in the video below.