Can I change a project's Unity version?

Hello!
I'm planning on making a game and want to be prepared. So far I have noticed you can't change a project's Unity version. Does that mean I need to use the same version for all those ~4 years of developing the game?
Thanks to everyone who helps!

 

Thanks a lot for the help!

 

You can: download the new Unity version and open up the project in that (after making backup and having a version control system).

But, you normally should not do that unless you REALLY need some bug fixes/new features from the new version. It depends on what you're doing.

Edit: woha, the forum forgot to tell me that there were multiple posts in the mean time. Sorry for stating the obvious again.

 

Yeah, that's important

 

Still thanks for your help

 

Unity projects can be moved to later versions, but Unity does not support the other direction, so its a one way trip (depending on how much has changed between the two Unity versions). So as already stated, backup your project before opening in a later Unity version.

 

Just had an incidental with a project where one of the developers accidentally committed an update with a release that was a few minor versions (2019.2.8) too new. Unity Hub refused to open it saying I needed to download the appropriate release.

What was interesting though is that when he attempted to set it to the correct version (2019.2.0) again he was off by one minor release (2019.2.1) but this time around Unity Hub offered the option to downgrade to the previous release.

While I wouldn't recommend depending on this I would love to know what Unity would do for the downgrade beyond simply modifying the project version.

 

That's interesting. My understand has been while Unity does include scripts for converting between Unity versions when save files, data structures, etc, have changed, but only when going to a later release. I'd be very happy to hear that they have done so in reverse as well (though I'm skeptical).

 

It doesn't work for me! I am currently making a game called "BOXER SHORTS" and I was using Unity 2019. But now I've discovered what the visual scripting tool is, and since I'm not good with C# scripting, I decided to change the version to 2021.2 Alpha. But then when I reload the Unity Hub, it turns back to Unity 2019, and Visual Scripting isn't a thing in Unity 2019.

 

Something you can do is make a new Unity project using said new version, and reimport the scripts and assets inside that Unity project. So now you don't have to change the Unity version.

 

Does the Unity Hub support multiple versions? Mine lets me download multiple.

 

Boxer Shorts?! I wouldn't mind a look at that when it's done lol.