With a new release candidate version of 2019.3, we’re entering the final stages of testing for release readiness.

When we label a Unity version a “release candidate,” it means that we’re finalizing the last step of the beta testing phase and are in the final stage just before the full official release. Each release candidate goes through a further set of Release Acceptance tests before we make a decision whether it’s ready for publishing.

Unity 2019.3 is our largest and most complex release to date, with new foundational tech across the board and more than 170 features and improvements on top of a ton of fixes. We want to ensure all these tools work well together before the release leaves the beta testing phase.

Based on the feedback we have received and expect to receive during the end of the year, we aim to hit the quality bar needed to enter the official full release status in January 2020.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on it, the latest release candidate is available to download today. Unity 2019.3 has a ton of quality of life improvements, and lots of new big features (like HDRP and our new 2D tools) are becoming production-ready with this release. Feel free to take the latest version for a spin over the holidays.

The Unity 2019.3 public beta has been our most active yet, with around three thousand bug reports from the community. We take this feedback very seriously and really appreciate the contributions you have made throughout the 2019 TECH stream. Please reach out via bug reports or in the 2019.3 beta forum if you are encountering any unknown issues with this latest release so we can address them.

For those of you who have projects in production or want to update live projects, we highly recommend waiting for the 2019 Long-Term Support (LTS) release. While the TECH stream offers you the latest features and improvements, in the LTS releases we focus entirely on stability and quality. Therefore, the LTS version of Unity 2019 will only add fixes that address crashes, regressions, and issues that affect the wider community. It is our recommended version for those projects that are past the pre-production phase. We expect to ship the 2019 LTS in the spring of 2020 along with the first 2020.1 TECH Stream.