The quiet Unity revolution continues apace in 2013. Indie developers have flocked to it since its reinvention as Unity 3 in 2010, and now the engine is a nearly universal development tool for creators that want to make 3D games as rich as those built in Epic’s Unreal engine, but perhaps can’t afford the licensing fees. Unity continues to expand beyond PC, Mac, and mobile devices, moving into the as yet unreleased consoles. While Unity is already powering some PlayStation 3 games, Unity announced on Thursday that it’s going to support all of Sony’s gaming platforms going forward, including the PS Vita, PlayStation Mobile, and PlayStation 4.
“Sony Computer Entertainment is really committed to making their platforms approachable to all kinds of developers, so this partnership is going to make a lot of sense for both companies,” said Unity CEO David Helgason, “Work is still in early stages so it will be more than a couple of months before we have something for you all to play with, but we’re hitting the ground running in the efforts to give you all most options to publish your awesome games.”
This is just the latest move by Unity Technologies to guarantee that it’s tools are available to any game designer regardless of the platform they want to develop for. In September, within days of Nintendo announcing a release date and line up for its latest console, Unity announced that it would also be supporting Wii U. “We can bring a lot of awesome developers, both big and small, and a very large number of indie studios with very creative games and game ideas to the Wii U ecosysterm,” said Helgason at the time.
A number of high profile independent games are being made with Unity. InXile Entertainment is using Unity to build its Kickstarter-backed Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera, and Ragnar Tornquist is using it for his sequel to The Longest Journey, Dreamfall Chapters. The Fullbright Company, a new studio staffed by former BioShock and XCOM developers, is using Unity to create its promising new adventure game Gone Home.
Helgason and Unity Technologies will show off its latest tools at the Game Developers Conference next week.
