Unity attempts to turn things around with its latest game engine release

Unity hasn’t had the easiest go of things as of late, but as part of its efforts to get back in the good graces of game developers, the company has released Unity 6 globally. In addition to new features like tools that let developers to target mobile web, the game engine maker is also promising that it will dedicate “long-term” resources to “to enhance feature sets and deliver new functionality while maintaining ease of upgrade and continued stability,” according to a press release.

Unity is a widely-used game development engine powering games like Among Us, Hollow Knight, and many more, but the release of Unity 6 follows a turbulent period in the company’s history. Unity charges developers on a per-user basis, but in September 2023, the company announced a new pricing scheme that charged developers per install of their games after a certain threshold. The change could have potentially added significant costs for developers, and many expressed significant frustrations.

While Unity made some changes to the planned per-install model in response to the outcry, CEO John Riccitiello announced his retirement shortly after and was replaced in May by former Zynga and EA exec Matthew Bromberg. Then, last month, Unity announced that it was canceling its plans for the runtime fee entirely.

“With the release of Unity 6, we’re interested in reconnecting with customers and help them understand that it’s our commitment to deliver what matters to them, and that we’re going to be a fundamentally different company in that regard,” Bromberg says to CNBC.

Unity also needs to stay in the good graces of developers as it faces continued competition from Epic Games’ Unreal Engine. In a recent interview with The Verge, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney laid out the company’s plan for the rest of the decade, including continued work on Unreal Engine 6, the next major release of the product.