What’s Changed

new process for publishing snapshots and releases to Sonatype by @stephengold in #2535
better location for the “uploadToCentral.sh” build script by @stephengold in #2536

Full Changelog: v3.9.0-alpha2…v3.9.0-alpha3

It’s been two weeks since the release of 4.5 beta 1, and already a plethora of various bugs and regressions have been dealt with, so it’s time for 4.5 beta 2. This is an ongoing process of course, so there’s going to be a couple more beta snapshots following this, but progress has been smooth and we’re quite satisfied with our current timeframe; great work, everyone!

Jump to the Downloads section, and give it a spin right now, or continue reading to learn more about improvements in this release. You can also try the Web editor or the Android editor for this release. If you are interested in the latter, please request to join our testing group to get access to pre-release builds.

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Highlights

For an overview of what’s new overall in Godot 4.5, have a look at the highlights for 4.5 beta 1, which cover a lot of the changes. This blog post only covers the changes between beta 1 and beta 2. This section covers the most relevant changes made since the beta 1 snapshot, which are largely regression fixes:

Input: SDL3 joystick input driver

Even though we’re now in feature freeze, you might recall us mentioning a handful of pre-approved exceptions. This was by far the biggest one of note: SDL3 input! For those unaware: SDL is a collection of common APIs shared across an ever-growing portion of software, allowing for convenient and easy integration of common tasks and actions for developers. They’ve recently came out with their 3.0 release this January, bringing with it a multitude of features and enhancements alike.

First-time contributor Nintorch took to the integration of one such feature: their input handler (GH-106218). This implementation was so thorough, that it entirely replaced our old input method! The more technical nuances of this change are better delved into on the PR itself, but the biggest takeaway is that this opens the door for easy and native integration of additional input features; while we won’t be seeing any of these in 4.5, Nintorch already has a work-in-progress PR that’s set to add these features.

And more!

• 3D: Fix freelook in 3D when multiple viewports are open (GH-107530).
• Audio: iOS: Add permission request for Apple embedded platforms, fix microphone input (GH-107973).
• Audio: Web: Fix Webkit leak caused by the position reporting audio worklets (GH-107948).
• Buildsystem: Enable lightmapper and xatlas_unwrap modules on Android and iOS editors (GH-107635).
• Editor: Allow toggling UID display in path properties (GH-106716).
• Export: Android: Implement sparse bundle PCK support (GH-105984).
• GDScript: Fix errors not being emitted when debugger breaks on script errors (GH-107663).
• GDScript: LSP: Fix file URI handling + warn about workspace project mismatch (GH-104401).
• GUI: Android: Address API 35 UI behavior changes (GH-107742).
• GUI: Fix and improve editor state persistence for the VisualShader editor (GH-98566).
• Rendering: Allow double precision modelview (GH-106951).
• Rendering: Fix baked VoxelGI using the wrong color space (GH-107776).
• Rendering: Fix GLES3 stereo output (sRGB + lens distortion) (GH-107698).
• XR: Add support for running hybrid apps from the XR editor (GH-103972).
• XR: OpenXR: Add support for render models extension (GH-107388).

Changelog

82 contributors submitted 152 fixes for this release. See our interactive changelog for the complete list of changes since the previous 4.5-beta2 snapshot.

This release is built from commit e1b4101e3.

Downloads

Standard build includes support for GDScript and GDExtension.

.NET build (marked as mono) includes support for C#, as well as GDScript and GDExtension.

Known issues

During the beta stage, we focus on solving both regressions (i.e. something that worked in a previous release is now broken) and significant new bugs introduced by new features. You can have a look at our current list of regressions and significant issues which we aim to address before releasing 4.5. This list is dynamic and will be updated if we discover new showstopping issues after more users start testing the beta snapshots.

With every release, we accept that there are going to be various issues which have already been reported but haven’t been fixed yet. See the GitHub issue tracker for a complete list of known bugs.

There are currently no known issues introduced by this release.

Bug reports

As a tester, we encourage you to open bug reports if you experience issues with this release. Please check the existing issues on GitHub first, using the search function with relevant keywords, to ensure that the bug you experience is not already known.

In particular, any change that would cause a regression in your projects is very important to report (e.g. if something that worked fine in previous 4.x releases, but no longer works in this snapshot).

Support

Godot is a non-profit, open source game engine developed by hundreds of contributors on their free time, as well as a handful of part or full-time developers hired thanks to generous donations from the Godot community. A big thank you to everyone who has contributed their time or their financial support to the project!

If you’d like to support the project financially and help us secure our future hires, you can do so using the Godot Development Fund platform managed by Godot Foundation. There are also several alternative ways to donate which you may find more suitable.