The Future of C# in Godot

With the recent mass influx of Unity developers to the Godot ecosystem, the need for C# programming support as a first class feature has never been more important. Unfortunately in Godot 4.x, C# support is by no means perfect, with several platforms simply not working and requiring a separate and hard to maintain interface. There is a proposal in place to replace the existing C# implementation with the more modern GDExtension system, which is used by other languages such as Swift, Go, Rust, Haxe and more.

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[GoblinArmyInYourWalls]

I enjoy how you're simultaneously straight to the point while also delivering a high volume of relevant information in each video.

[mlmattin]

It's important to me for Godot to have solid, first-class C# support. It's not important to me because Unity has it, but because I use C# in my daily job and I already have experience with it. I am not targeting mobile or web, so that is not a factor for me personally. Whatever they decide to do, I hope that they can progress quickly. I think it would go a long way in getting more developers on board.

[billrazor]

Thanks for the video! BTW, there is a new add-on for Godot 4 called LimboAi. It is designed to streamline the creation of behavior trees and state machines for enemies in games. And it's just amazing. It would be interesting to know your opinion about it.

[InzeDev]

Super happy they're doing this. I personally wasn't planning on developing for mobile on my current project so it wasn't a deal breaker for me, but I know there's a lot of mobile developers coming in from unity's fallout. Anything that makes Godot more accessible helps the community grow and is a win for everyone.

[kalimero]

I really like GODOT but the "bad" support for C# kept me away from it. Now that they are working on it I started my game in GODOT, I hope they will implement all this new support by the time I will finish it or soon eanough.

[bazookaman]

I managed to make a game fully in C# before 4.0.
It's a game that's between a small game and a big game, I did take 9 months on it but since I didn't go for any resource saving technique like roguelike elements it's only 20 minutes long, it's a shmup and has 3 levels and that may not sound like a lot but it has 3 difficulties with different patterns, 4 player characters, bosses are multiphased with different patterns like Touhou, the difficulty is dynamic, the scoring system is decent I think, stages don't share any asset besides basic mechanics.
C# is pretty capable so making it better is just roughing out the edges.

[brucelee]

Yessss lets I really dont want to give up my c# skills in using godot (spent 3 months learning everything about it from a book) and this announcement is YUGE! Keep up updates coming bro

[centdemeern]

As a developer who knows how to use C# but still prefers GDScript, it’s nice to see C# in Godot getting some love. If I’m going to use a GDExtension language though, it’s going to be Rust.

[woodbyte]

The process of moving C# over to GDExtension is likely to improve the support for C# in the engine and the flexibility of GDExtension overall. I'm all for it.

[etherealregions]

The main C++ discord I hangout on, has programmers who work on Unreal and Godot simultaneously. So I have no doubt that Godot is going to go through some significant changes in the not so distant future.

[computernerd]

I Prefer GDScript to C# but I am glad its getting support. If I want my code in a C languange, I will use C++ because its my preference.

[oghllvp]

I have been working on a collision detection system for about 2 years now using C# in the Godot engine. The biggest issue is calling native engine functions. The engine is more than capable of compiling hand crafted solutions. C# works incredibly well, so for anyone that has doubts, try writing your own solutions.

[guidoopossum]

I really like C#. I had a choice between gdscript and C# to create a project and I chose gdscript because mobile support. I plan to use C# for future projects when everything is ready.

[torrescle]

I think most games that "Unity refugees" are porting from Unity (or starting a new project) won't be release within one month or three. So the support for Mobile and web could be production ready at the game release.

[paulcasanova]

So excited to get better support for C#. I want to be able to expose structs!

[kiyasuihito]

This is awesome. One version of Godot. Love the simplicity and sustainability here.

[takarahayashi]

you can't help but absolutely love how godot is built up /improve with the community.

[stupidburp]

As developers, if you want better support for a feature in Godot, contribute some time on that or other aspects of the open source project. The more hands on, the faster progress will be made in general. Of course you should tackle whatever parts you think you can handle.

[xlerb]

Glad to see there's forward motion on this. I hope that influx of C# devs have a bit of patience and stick around awhile. I'm not sure yet if Godot is the engine for me, but that doesn't matter. I'm just a semi-retired dev wanting to learn a bit more about game development. I've no plans to release anything - nor even finish anything for that matter. So I'll likely stick with Unity, for a little while anyway. II wouldn't do that if I were planning on releasing anything of course.

[novhck]

This is exactly what Godot is. Community driven project which develops along with the need of it's users. Right now users experienced with C# need better C# support, can actually give specific expertise on what has to change and some of them will also become contributors themselves while the whole change is managed by the core team. This is what differentiates open source projects from commercial ones the most and I love it. I can't even count the amount of times I read users of commercial engines whine about how developers of engines they use don't care about their needs and instead focus on bringing in new users from completely different fields of media to increase revenue as much as possible.