Unite 2023: 15th Unity Awards, new dev resources, and the latest Tech Stream release

Yesterday, we were joined by 1,800 creators and our awesome sponsors in Amsterdam for Unite 2023. From the Keynote to breakout sessions, listening lounges to community chatter on Discord, the event was packed with expert tips, creator success stories, and technical deep dives for real-time 3D developers globally.

Whether you were in-person in Amsterdam or following along from home, here are some highlights that we know you won’t want to have missed.

Winners in the 15th Unity Awards were revealed, and we could not be happier for everyone the community voted to honor – including four-time winner MARVEL SNAP. You can see some of this amazing work in a highlight reel below, or read on for highlights across a few categories.

When it comes to your favorite content creators, the duo below shines bright. Press play on some of our favorite videos this year, then check out their channels.

Code Monkey

Winner of Best Devlog Series, Best Tutorial Series, and Best Livestreamer | Follow on YouTube, X, Patreon

JasperDev

Winner of Most Entertaining and Best Newcomer | Follow on YouTube, X, Instagram

The Unity Asset Store is a critical resource for the community and, between nominations and award winners, it’s clear that the value covers so many amazing publishers and packages. Click through to explore winning content now, then browse the Black Friday sale to spot nominees and shop bestsellers.

• Asset Store Publisher of the Year: More Mountains
• Best Development Tool: FPS Engine
• Best Artistic Tool: Text Animator for Unity
• Best Artistic Content: POLYGON – Elven Realm

Those present in the “Go behind the scenes with the SPACE INVADERS: World Defense team” breakout session had a chance to hear from Google’s Dereck Bridié and UNIT9’s Jakub Jakubowski about how Google, TAITO, and UNIT9 used Google’s ARCore Geospatial API, Google Cloud, and the Unity Editor to help power the next generation of immersive gameplay. The team is excited about the opportunities this tooling can unlock and can’t wait to see what you build with the world as your canvas.

If you missed the session, you can learn more about the technology used to build SPACE INVADERS: World Defense in this blog post from Google. To keep up with the latest updates on ARCore, Geospatial Creator, and more, follow Google’s AR and VR accounts on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

A much-anticipated Unite session is our “road ahead” breakout on game development with Unity, which walks through important advances for the Unity Editor and Runtime – this year’s was no exception. In addition to announcements shared in yesterday’s Keynote, the session explored upcoming Unity 6 enhancements and revealed 2023.2 Tech Stream news.

This latest Tech Stream brings you accelerated lighting workflow capabilities, improved XR interactions, and so many other cool features. Each release is supported with weekly updates until the next version (that’s why your feedback is critical).

Not with us in Amsterdam? Don’t sweat it. Here’s an inside scoop on new resources that were revealed or shared during the event that you can access anywhere right now.

Quickstart your multiplayer game with the Netcode for GameObjects package and Unity Gaming Services’s new multiplayer template, found in the Unity Hub. This resource is compatible with 2022 LTS and above and includes a Bootstrapper tool that helps you test faster using various network modes (Host, Client, Server) and dynamic configurations, in-Editor tutorials, and a barebone event-driven gameplay flow. If you’re looking for a starting point to build small-scale competitive games (e.g., real-time strategy games) that don’t require prediction, you’ve come to the right place.

Revealed as part of the Keynote, an all-new 3D sample project based on the Universal Render Pipeline (URP) is now available. With it, artists and developers using 2022 LTS can explore how to develop, scale, and configure graphics for multiplatform projects.

In addition to the main conference, we spent time this week hosting day-long programming catered to how our technology impacts gaming, industry, and education. Each Summit was an opportunity for leaders to dive deeper into Unity focus areas and look at current trends in real-time 3D. Session highlights include:

• “Creator roundtable: Taking your game into the future” (Games Executive Summit)
• “Building the next generation of car experiences, with Mercedes-Benz Group AG” (Industry Executive Summit)
• “Succeeding in the classroom with Unity” (Education Summit)

We want to thank all of the Unity folks and community volunteers who came together to give back to our beautiful host city by removing plastic from the Amsterdam canals. All in, we were able to extract 30 large bags of waste from the water in just one day. Additionally, Unity has worked with climate-conscious companies to offset the carbon footprint of Unite.

It’s always so great to connect with our Unity community. We hope you’ll continue to join us on the journey of building a world with more creators in it. Follow all the latest Unity happenings in the forums or on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch. On-demand session recordings from Unite 2023 will be available soon. In the meantime, watch the Keynote or explore the latest news on Unity Industry and AI.