According to Unity, the new version sports the "biggest additions" since the engine's inception, with the firm offering Unity 3.5 without charge to studios already signed up for version 3.0 or higher.
Upgrades for all
"This is one of the most spectacular additions we've ever made to Unity," said CEO David Helgason.
"Recognising that Unity was being pushed harder and harder, we launched our initiative to upgrade Unity with high-end capabilities that larger studios are accustomed to and smaller studios usually dont have access to.
"We want to make Unity the best choice for everyone and Unity 3.5 is a massive demonstration of our commitment to that goal.2
Upgrades to the engine which Unity claims is already used by 800,000 registered developers worldwide include the addition of the Shuriken particle system, AI improvements, a new multi-threaded renderer, a preview release of a new Flash deployment add-on and better collaboration tools.
There'a also support for Google's Native Client, which enables near native speed performance within the Chrome browser, without the need for installing the Unity Web Player.
Pride in battle
"We are incredibly proud of this release and I think it's our strongest yet," added CCO Nicholas Francis.
"A year ago, we took a deep dive and began working on developing features for more complex projects and larger teams.
"It took hard work to do this while preserving the intuitive and usable design that makes Unity so popular, but we are sure that developers using Unity will be as happy with the improvements as we are."
Full details on the upgrades included in Unity 3.5 can be found on the engine's website.
