Free gamedev tools and art packs to kick-start your next project

For indie developers or lean teams building games, one of the best places to get started is the Unity Asset Store. Packed with stellar assets to accelerate every aspect of game development, the Asset Store is your go-to resource for high-quality tools, art packs, templates, and more.

To help kick things off, we’ve compiled top-rated tools and starter packs to support your next project. Whether you’re an expert game developer or just beginning, check out this blog to discover a selection of free assets available now.

Before we dive into the list of free assets, consider what type of game you’re looking to create. Some of the more popular categories include 2D, 3D, side-scrollers, and VR. But no matter your game’s goal or genre, we’ve got you covered.

Hoping to recapture some of that 80s gaming nostalgia? If you can’t resist a classic platformer with enemies and power-ups galore, then these 2D assets are for you.

This Free Platform Game Assets package is great for beginners. It offers plenty of 2D and 2.5D assets with simple animations (Water, Character Run), handy GUI components, and premade backgrounds, among other features. If you’re making your own game and feeling overwhelmed, this pack can give you the head start you need.

A must-try asset by Brackeys, the Free 2D Mega Pack includes backgrounds, environments, characters, UI tools, icons… the list goes on. In fact, there are actually a number of games made with this pack that you can use for reference.

To create beautiful skies, try your hand at Fantasy Skybox FREE. This intuitive asset pack contains 50 cubemaps and 32 panoramic skyboxes. You’ll also get to play around with different times of day, like sunrise or sunset, and weather those rainy or snowy seasons.

Take on this all-in-one kit to build your next platformer. Sunny Land has everything you need, from sprites and enemies to music tracks and backgrounds. You’ll love this pack if you’re into old-school pixel art.

If you want your game to spawn across the galaxies, SpaceSkies Free might be in the stars for you. Take advantage of three different space-themed skyboxes in various texture resolutions.

Calling all our 3D friends! There are tons of awesome resources to take your game to the next dimension, starting with the ones below.

One common challenge of 3D game development centers on perfecting movement animations. With the free version of Basic Motions, you’ll get a dozen different ones, like jumping, strafing, and falling, so you can fully set your game in motion.

The Fantasy Forest Environment demo is absolutely breathtaking. You’ll get to recreate some stunning forest scenes with textured trees, terrain textures, meshes, and more. This is your chance to truly go green.

For all you low-poly fans out there, here’s a drag-and-drop Character Pack to try out. This free, mobile-friendly sample comes fully textured and rigged, with 10 unique animations (idle, walk, jump, and more) so you can get moving.

Speaking of low-poly art, you can add more trees and grass to your project with the Low-Poly Simple Nature Pack. This pack has 24 Prefabs for building a robust landscape.

Visual effects (VFX) inform the look and feel of your game, often creating rich immersion that captivates your players. While implementing VFX can be a lengthy and complex process, we’ve got some assets that are sure to save you time.

Give your game a cartoon style with Cartoon FX Free. This free version of the Cartoon FX kit includes several effects – from fire to bubbles to electricity – as well as a custom shader and some HDR effects.

Take your skyboxes to new horizons with this Free Skybox Extended Shader. It provides height-based fog, rotation animation, and even lets you blend two cubemaps together.

Accessibility in gaming is critical – and considering the growing population impacted by some type of vision deficiency, Colorblind Effect can help you design a more inclusive experience. As used by Owlchemy Labs to create Cosmonious High, this asset covers the three most common types of colorblindness.

Watch the team discuss their development journey below:

Another thing you’ll find on the Asset Store is a variety of templates: real-life examples of functional, playable games. Leverage them to familiarize yourself with key settings, or use them to experiment with cool ideas for your project.

Load up your game with Low-Poly Shooter Pack. Not only does it come with two weapons and animated arms, you can harness explosive VFX and animations, player head-up display (HUD), and more.

Game Framework isn’t tied to a specific type of game but offers ample components and scripts that most developers can benefit from. With level and character setup, dialog handling, and progress tracking, the aim is to build upon a base.

Kawaii Tanks Project – Free Version 2.0 includes tanks for both desktop and mobile platforms. Equipped with a customizable damage system, realistic movement animations, and basic tank functions like driving, aiming, and firing, you’ll be ready for your next tank battle.

One part of gamedev that’s too often overlooked is sound. The right audio experience can make games more enjoyable, so here are some libraries for finding sound effects (SFX), music, and other audio clips.

The FREE Casual Game SFX Pack is a collection of professionally recorded, one-shot sound effects, such as bonus blips, explosions, and even UI and UX sounds. There are over 50 sound effects for you to choose from and incorporate into your project.

Dynamic Music is a set of eight compositions, deconstructed into layers and parts that can be played in parallel for remixing unique sounds. We can’t believe this five-star asset is free either!

Looking for something specific for your role-playing game (RPG)? Action RPG Music Free is a library of mainly orchestral music tracks for RPG or action-adventure games. The majority of these tracks have seamless and noise-free loop points, so you can make the music loop as you see fit.

Not sure which game genre you’re going for yet? Consider these tried-and-true tools that will help speed up and streamline your development:

• DOTween: An efficient, type-safe, object-oriented animation engine for animating with simplified code
• Mesh Baker Free: A free version of the popular Mesh Baker tool that enables flexible, non-destructive workflows for optimizing props and scenes
• Mega World Free: A terrain tool for level design and procedural generation
• Zibra Liquids Free: A real-time fluid simulation for creating game mechanics and refining the realism of your game
• RiderFlow: A scenery tool for building and managing your 3D space
• MicroSplat: A useful replacement shader system for Unity Terrains
• Third-Person Controller – Basic Locomotion Free: A template for the quick setup of a character controller

Of course, we couldn’t cover all of the high-quality freebies from the Asset Store in a single post. You can check out this page for a full catalog of top free assets at your fingertips.

Want to know our community’s favorite free assets? Find out in this Twitter thread and follow the Asset Store on Twitter for monthly asset highlights. We hope this guide inspires you to create.