The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is almost upon us and this event is focused on bringing together game developers, designers, professionals, and people that are involved in the development of games. Unity, as we all know, powers quite a few visually stunning games on the mobile front, especially for apps on Windows Phone and Windows 8.1.
For example, Temple Run, Wreck-It Ralph, Drift Mania: Street Outlaws, and Gunpowder are just a few Windows Store and Windows Phone titles that are powered by the Unity 3D engine. Unity 5, on the other hand, is set to change the way we look at mobile games, whether we play it on a desktop computer, tablet, or console.
Unity 5 is set to bring advanced lighting, physics, and audio effects to mobile gaming, as you can see in the embedded video below. Your next Windows Phone or Windows 8.1 game might just be powered by Unity 5 (when it becomes available) and its time you mentally prepared yourself for some stunning gameplay.
As Engadget notes, Unity 5 has a new physics-based shader system and integration of Geomerics Enlighten illumination tools which will offer more realistic lighting and shadows as well as console-caliber visual effects. This is the same lighting system used by games like Battlefield 4. The audio pipeline offers better performance and more flexibility when it comes to mixing sound and adding effects.
Best of all, Unity 5 features early support for WebGL, which means games can be built with support for Windows Phone, Windows, iOS, Android, Blackberry, OSX, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Wii U and any modern web browser. How cool is that? Unity 5 will also add support for 64-bit CPU, along with support for Nvidia PhysX 3.3, which will be twice as fast as the Unity 4.0 engine.
Unity is set to demo a game called Dead Trigger 2, running on WebGL, during the GDC, which is set to take place March 17th. We can also expect more details on Unity 5 during the GDC, including how our device’s battery life will be impacted. You can also take a look here at a list of Windows Phone and Windows Store games that are powered by Unity3D.
Game developers will have Unity 5 at their disposal to create visually stunning games for the Windows Phone and Windows Store platforms, when the engine becomes available. Consumers will ultimately benefit from the engine with visually stunning games on the mobile platform. I am definitely looking forward to playing some Unity 5 powered games on my Lumia Icon!
