Hello 2D developers!

First of all, I want to thank you for continuing to support Unity, and especially our 2D features. The 2D Team love working in this area of the engine, and we are very happy to announce that, as a company, we’ll be devoting considerable additional resources to making our 2D tools as intuitive, powerful and flexible as we possibly can.

2D is super important

Developing our 2D offering has become one of Unity’s top priorities. We’ve expanded our team, and there are now many new faces working on building some exciting features.

We’ve also thought a lot about the way we organize what the 2D Team does, and how we can ensure that we get more feedback at an earlier stage of development. To that end, we now have our own dedicated alpha shipping cycle!

Early alpha access for Unity Pro users

Perhaps the most exciting change is that we’re releasing features that are in development to Unity Pro users much earlier. With your feedback, we hope to cut development time by better understanding how we can meet your needs.

You can find the link to the current alpha from our Bitbucket repo.

Demos, prototyping tools and documentation

As well as posting each new release to Bitbucket, we’ll also upload early versions of tech demos, prototyping tools, and draft documentation.

How you can help shape the future of 2D

The 2D Team has its own dedicated QA and UX resources. This means we’re a self-contained unit that can implement all the changes that will make Unity’s upcoming 2D tools truly awesome.

To make suggestions, flag issues, and give us feedback just post to the Issues Section on the repo, and we’ll action them.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the features in the current alpha build:

Tile Map Editor

9-Slice Sprites

Smart Sprite

ETC1 Compression

Masking

Improved Sprite Packing

And many more…

We hope this new development process will help us get to where we should be faster. On behalf of the 2D Team, I’d like to thank you once again for using and testing our tools!