Today Unity Technologies launched Unity 5.6, bringing to a close the Unity 5 cycle. The new version brings lots of new features, for virtual reality (VR) there’s now native support for Google VR.

With Google VR support on Unity 5.6, developers will find it easier to publish to Google Cardboard and Google Daydream.

In its blog posting Unity said: “To get optimal performance and latency from the Daydream platform, we integrated with the Google VR NDK to leverage the platform’s asynchronous reprojection and VR performance modes.

“Compared to the Daydream support in the Google VR SDK for Unity released at Google I/O, we now provide a more streamlined workflow, significant optimizations and reduced latency. No prefabs, scripts or manual manifest modifications are required to get started–simply enable VR and add Daydream as a targeted platform to begin making your own virtual worlds.

“We have also made it easy to switch in and out of VR mode so that your applications can easily expand to the full Google VR audience and target Google Cardboard with full native support. Applications which target Cardboard will work on older devices so you can reach as many users as possible. At this time, Cardboard support is exclusive to Android with iOS Cardboard support coming soon.”

Earlier this month Unity also teased details of Unity 2017 beta, saying it would be geared towards non-programmers, with a range of features designed for artists and designers. The beta is due for release next month.

Unity is one of the most popular middleware development engines, utilised by developer for VR and non-VR work the world over. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Unity, reporting back with the latest announcements.