This lecture points out that in Unity when you’ve got ‘2D’ selected, it’s actually a 3D world with the camera locked to a certain orientation. Is this only the case in the editor, or in the game engine as well? I’m wondering if that introduces any performance concerns? As in: if you want to make a 2D-only game, is Unity still going to use a 3D engine to run it, and so is it actually not a very efficient choice for 2D games?
Thanks!
There are always performance concerns, but it’s best not to worry about it until A). You’re a lot further into your learning… and B) When you’ve actually hit a performance issue.
Even with all it’s downsides, Unity is still one of the best choices for 2D games.
Ok, thank you for your reply.
My thinking was: if I’m intending to make a 2D game, but Unity is not the best choice, should I stop learning this and try something like GameMaker instead?
Hi GlumReaper,
Welcome to our community! 
If you feel that Unity was not the best choice for your game, my personal advice would be to test a different game engine (e. g. GameMaker) to figure out if that one is better for your game.
Unity is fairly universal, which is great if you need “everything”. However, if you have specific problems, other game engines specialising in those specific problems might be better.
For example, I would not create a simple text-based adventure game in Unity because Twine is much better and much more performant. I would also rather opt for the RPG Maker 2000 (or whatever the latest version is) if I wanted to create a traditional “SNES” 2D RPG game unless I could not realise my ideas with that engine.
Regarding your questions on 2D games in general, I would suggest to look for similar games you want to create. Then try to figure out which game engine the creators used. For example, “Ori and the Blind Forest” was created with Unity. While Unity is indeed a 3D game engine, it also handles the 2D space well, so my advice would be to not drop Unity just because you could create 3D games with it.
Efficiency depends on multiple factors. Your time is one of them.
Do what you feel is and works best for your project(s).
See also:
Thank you, that sounds like a very helpful way of looking at it.
I think I will continue with Unity unless and until I see that it’s not in fact appropriate for pure 2D.
That’s the best way in my opinion. If you like Unity in general and do not see any potential larger problems regarding your project, don’t worry about other game engines because each one has got its advantages and disadvantages.
Generally, when deciding what tool/ framework you should use for your project, always check first if you will have to rewrite parts of the product (e. g. the physics simulation) to make your ideas work. If you have to do that, do not use these tools unless there are no alternatives. They are supposed to save you time, not to make your life difficult.
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