Godot 4.5 Release Candidate 1 (RC 1) is now available, marking a major milestone in the development process. This release candidate has been thoroughly tested and is suitable for production use, but community feedback on existing projects is still critical for guaranteeing its stability. A further RC 2 release is planned early next week to address critical bug fixes related to C# project exports and shipping baked shaders on iOS. 

Godot 4.5 Release Candidate 1: A Major Milestone

The Godot team has announced the availability of Godot 4.5 Release Candidate 1 (RC 1), which marks an important day in the development process. This release candidate represents the culmination of planned features and the resolution of critical regressions, making it suitable for production use.

Community Testing: A Crucial Step

As with any major software release, community testing plays a vital role in identifying any remaining issues. The Godot team is seeking feedback from users on existing projects to ensure that no significant problems go unnoticed. It's essential to back up projects before upgrading to this release candidate to avoid potential data loss.

Upcoming Release: RC 2

A further release candidate, RC 2, is anticipated early next week. This update will address critical bug fixes related to C# project exports on older Android devices and shipping baked shaders on iOS. If no significant regressions are reported following RC 1 and RC 2, the stable Godot 4.5 release is expected shortly thereafter.

Testing Options

Users can test this release candidate via various channels:

1. Downloads section: Access the latest version of Godot 4.5 RC 1 from the official download page.
2. Web editor: Try out the web-based editor to experiment with new features and report any issues.
3. XR editor: Test the XR (Extended Reality) capabilities of Godot using the XR editor.
4. Android editor pre-release builds: Join the testing group for early access to Android-specific features.

New in RC 1

This release candidate specifically focuses on regression fixes made since the beta 7 snapshot, including:

• Core:
  • Fixes for object holding during emission (GH-109770)
  • SceneTree crashes when receiving notifications without a root (GH-110041)
• Editor:
  • Introduction of a backwards-compatible API for single-object inspect commands (GH-110043)
  • Fix for Range scale overflow (GH-110107)
• Export:
  • Resolution of an issue where editor export plugins incorrectly caused resources to be edited (GH-110057)
• GUI:
  • Prevention of flags being set when PopupMenu::set_visible is called to hide the popup (GH-110049)
• Input:
  • Correction of a regression in Input.get_joy_info() following the SDL input driver update (GH-108214)
• Porting:
  • macOS improvement to process joypad input directly within the embedded process (GH-109603)
• Rendering:
  • Addition of GENERAL resource usage to the render graph
  • Fix for mutable texture initialization in D3D12 (GH-110204)
  • MSDF fix for outline bleed at small sizes (GH-110148)

The concise changelog for this release candidate features 24 fixes submitted by 18 contributors since the 4.5-beta7 snapshot.

Release candidate: Godot 4.5 RC 1

Godot 4.5 stable release is imminent; let the last round(s) of testing begin!

Release candidate: Godot 4.5 RC 1 – Godot Engine