Unity
Cross-platform game engine and editor for building 2D, 3D, XR and mobile games and apps.
HN commenters like Unity for its broad out-of-the-box feature set12 and for building to iOS, Android, Mac, Windows and web from one project.345 Common caveats are a heavy, editor-centered workflow that beginners find overwhelming and that loads slower than Godot,678 plus constant deprecation of features in favor of half-baked, poorly documented replacements.9
Why people recommend it
Cross-platform builds · 3
Exports to Android, Xcode projects, Mac, Windows and web, and can automate store uploads.
“Unity has great support for most things you want to do out of the box”
“I use unity & have both mac and windows automated building scripts”
Show 1 more
“I wrote it in Unity”
Feature breadth · 2
Supports most things you want to do out of the box, with a wide range of what you can achieve.
“Unity has great support for most things you want to do out of the box”
“Unity remains useful in terms of the sheer breadth of what you can achieve.”
Game development · 2
Recommended as a sensible engine for people who just want to make a game, including students.
“If you just want to make a game, use a game engine like Unity, Godot or Unreal.”
Visual editor · 1
Its editor makes 3D and UI adjustments far more productive than code-only frameworks like MonoGame.
“Switched to Unity, best choice ever.”
Caveats and dissent
Feature churn · 1
Features are constantly deprecated for half-baked, poorly documented replacements, making it feel unstable.
“Unity is actually really annoying in this regard, because they're _constantly_ deprecating features in favor of new features that are half baked and poorly documented.”
Beginner overload · 1
So many features that beginners struggle to know where to start.
“Unity and Unreal Engine have too many features, which actually makes them less beginner-friendly”
Editor workflow · 2
Some find the editor-centered workflow convoluted and its load times slow compared to Godot.
“there's no way I'm going back to the convoluted editor-centered workflow of Unity/Godot”
“When I returned to Unity I raised that my flow state was constantly being broken”
UI tooling · 1
One commenter calls it the dark ages for UI.
“Anyone who's worked on Unity knows it's the dark ages for UI over there.”
Dated C# runtime · 1
It runs on its own version of Mono, without the most recent C# features.
“Unity seems promising but they have a weird version of mono running things and not so recent C# features available.”
iOS build step · 1
iOS exports produce an Xcode project that must be compiled a second time, which one commenter calls a nightmare.
“Unity has great support for most things you want to do out of the box”
Often compared with
1 moved from Unity to Godot
1 moved from MonoGame to Unity
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Ask HN: Best way to develop games for beginners 3 mentions
- Fuck Android Developer Verification Program 1 mention
- One Month Without AI 1 mention
- 2DWillNeverDie 1 mention
- Top post in R/gamedev: "AI models have caught up with Unity dev." 1 mention
- I was on Ubuntu's first design team in 2009 London 1 mention
Data: unity.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 24
“Unity has great support for most things you want to do out of the box”
“I stopped writing my own engines and used Unity, Unreal Engine, Phaser, Godot...”
“embedded them in a Blender+Unity 3D level”
“20 years with game dev tools, 10 years with Unity”
“The typeface and text rendering is unmatched to this day.”
“there's no way I'm going back to the convoluted editor-centered workflow of Unity/Godot”
“plays nicely with the tools I use; unreal engine, unity, and blender”
“I use unity & have both mac and windows automated building scripts”
“I recommend taking a look at a real game engine (Unreal or Unity) and compare.”
“The average modern Unreal and Unity game feels like shit”
“If you just want to make a game, use a game engine like Unity, Godot or Unreal.”
“Unity is actually really annoying in this regard, because they're _constantly_ deprecating features in favor of new features that are half baked and poorly documented.”
“Anyone who's worked on Unity knows it's the dark ages for UI over there.”
“Unity remains useful in terms of the sheer breadth of what you can achieve.”
“I recommend Unity.”
“Unity and Unreal Engine have too many features, which actually makes them less beginner-friendly”
“I wrote it in Unity”
“though I had never used Unity before”
“They then suggest Unity as an alternative platform, which I personally think is a much worse option.”
“Switched to Unity, best choice ever.”
“Unity (Expert)”
“When I returned to Unity I raised that my flow state was constantly being broken”
“I heard good things about unity+AI”
“Unity seems promising but they have a weird version of mono running things and not so recent C# features available.”