Many developers are considering a switch to Godot after the Unity Runtime debacle, but is Godot prepared to capitalize on the wave of interest? Is Godot even a viable alternative to Unity?
In the wake of Unity’s widely discussed pricing and PR missteps, the search for alternative game engines has cast a spotlight on an unlikely protagonist: Godot (pronounced “Guh-doe”).
Perhaps the most well-known game engine outside of market leaders Unity and Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, Godot has carved out a niche for itself as a free, open-source alternative for game developers. Since its release in 2014, the brainchild of Argentine software developers Juan Linietsky and Ariel Manzur has amassed a small but dedicated following for its simplicity, ease of use, and open-source philosophy. This means that developers are, in the words of the Godot team, free to “download and create with no contracts or hidden fees.” With Godot, you can do “whatever you want” with your project and even the engine itself.
We should start by stating Godot is not a one-for-one replacement for Unity. Porting games from Unity to Godot is not straightforward, and any change of engine must be considered carefully. That’s not to say that one is necessarily better than the other; they are simply different engines built with different philosophies.
