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Godot release policy

Godot's release policy is in constant evolution. The description below provides a general idea of what to expect, but what will actually happen depends on the choices of core contributors and the needs of the community at a given time.

Godot versioning

Godot loosely follows Semantic Versioning with a major.minor.patch versioning system, albeit with an interpretation of each term adapted to the complexity of a game engine:

• The major version is incremented when major compatibility breakages happen which imply significant porting work to move projects from one major version to another.

  For example, porting Godot projects from Godot 3.x to Godot 4.x requires running the project through a conversion tool, and then performing a number of further adjustments manually for what the tool could not do automatically.

• The minor version is incremented for feature releases that do not break compatibility in a major way. Minor compatibility breakage in very specific areas may happen in minor versions, but the vast majority of projects should not be affected or require significant porting work.

  This is because Godot, as a game engine, covers many areas like rendering, physics, and scripting. Fixing bugs or implementing new features in one area might sometimes require changing a feature's behavior or modifying a class's interface, even if the rest of the engine API remains backwards compatible.

Tip

Upgrading to a new minor version is recommended for all users, but some testing is necessary to ensure that your project still behaves as expected.

• The patch version is incremented for maintenance releases which focus on fixing bugs and security issues, implementing new requirements for platform support, and backporting safe usability enhancements. Patch releases are backwards compatible.

  Patch versions may include minor new features which do not impact the existing API, and thus have no risk of impacting existing projects.

Tip

Updating to new patch versions is therefore considered safe and strongly recommended to all users of a given stable branch.

We call major.minor combinations stable branches. Each stable branch starts with a major.minor release (without the 0 for patch) and is further developed for maintenance releases in a Git branch of the same name (for example patch updates for the 4.0 stable branch are developed in the 4.0 Git branch).

Release support timeline

Stable branches are supported at least until the next stable branch is released and has received its first patch update. In practice, we support stable branches on a best effort basis for as long as they have active users who need maintenance updates.

Whenever a new major version is released, we make the previous stable branch a long-term supported release, and do our best to provide fixes for issues encountered by users of that branch who cannot port complex projects to the new major version. This was the case for the 2.1 branch, and is the case for the 3.6 branch.

In a given minor release series, only the latest patch release receives support. If you experience an issue using an older patch release, please upgrade to the latest patch release of that series and test again before reporting an issue on GitHub.

Version	Release date	Support level
Godot 4.1 (master)	Q2-Q3 2023 (estimate)	Development. Receives new features as well as bug fixes while under development.
Godot 4.0	March 2023	Receives fixes for bugs, security and platform support issues, as well as backwards-compatible usability enhancements.
Godot 3.6 (3.x, LTS)	Q2-Q3 2023 (estimate)	Beta. Receives new features as well as bug fixes while under development. Will be released after 4.0.
Godot 3.5	August 2022	Receives fixes for bugs, security and platform support issues, as well as backwards-compatible usability enhancements.
Godot 3.4	November 2021	No longer supported, as fully superseded by the compatible 3.5 release (last update: 3.4.5).
Godot 3.3	April 2021	No longer supported, as fully superseded by the compatible 3.4 release (last update: 3.3.4).
Godot 3.2	January 2020	No longer supported (last update: 3.2.3).
Godot 3.1	March 2019	No longer supported (last update: 3.1.2).
Godot 3.0	January 2018	No longer supported (last update: 3.0.6).
Godot 2.1	July 2016	No longer supported (last update: 2.1.6).
Godot 2.0	February 2016	No longer supported (last update: 2.0.4.1).
Godot 1.1	May 2015	No longer supported.
Godot 1.0	December 2014	No longer supported.

Legend: Full support – Partial support – No support (end of life) – Development version

Pre-release Godot versions aren't intended to be used in production and are provided for testing purposes only.

See also

See Upgrading from Godot 3 to Godot 4 for instructions on migrating a project from Godot 3.x to 4.x.

When is the next release out?

While Godot contributors aren't working under any deadlines, we strive to publish minor releases relatively frequently.

In particular, after the very length release cycle for 4.0, we are pivoting to a faster paced development workflow, with the 4.1 release expected within late Q2 / early Q3 2023.

Frequent minor releases will enable us to ship new features faster (possibly as experimental), get user feedback quickly, and iterate to improve those features and their usability. Likewise, the general user experience will be improved more steadily with a faster path to the end users.

Maintenance (patch) releases are released as needed with potentially very short development cycles, to provide users of the current stable branch with the latest bug fixes for their production needs.

The 3.6 release is still planned and should be the last stable branch of Godot 3.x. It will be a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, which we plan to support for as long as users still need it (due to missing features in Godot 4.x, or having published games which they need to keep updating for platform requirements).