Which Godot Engine Should You Use?

3.5? 4.0? 5.0????? Whether you are just starting your game dev journey or are in the middle of your game, it is tough to know which version of the Godot Engine to use. I break down the three groups you might fall into and whether you should stick with Godot 3.5 or make the jump to Godot 4.0.
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[@stayathomedev]

Who has made the jump to 4.0? 💛 Get GodotSky - A Dynamic Sky System for the Godot Engine stayathomedev.com/product/dynamic-sky-system/ Music is From Epidemic Sound share.epidemicsound.com/9gejuj

[@psyboyo]

Loved the video, and yeah I'm in the Godot limbo... could we ask you to make a video about all the changes in GDscript 2?

[@lyghtkruz]

I jumped to 4 since it went to beta. We finished our game in 3.x and it was time to start a new project so I jumped to learn 4. Things changed from the early versions of 4 to now, but the new/updated features are amazing. Animation library, tilemaps, navigation. I had stayed away from trying to learn too much 3D but now that 4 is out, I've been having lots of fun learning 3D.

[@cyber_habanero]

I'm forced to step on Godot4 cause only it can run OpenXR standalone games on Pico3/4, even if the antialiasing still sux. Would love if the automatical transformation of 3.x projects to Godot4 would be better.

[@lyghtkruz]

@cyber_habanero yeah, I don't see how they'd be able to do it with all the breaking changes. There is some stuff that it does well for converting but others aren't so great. One example is that velocity is now a part of the CharacterBody2D and some people defined velocity as their own variable. Should they comment out all of the lines with velocity? How does one handle that without breaking things?

[@hhw8508]

Godot is very welcome in China! No one updates godot youtube videos, slower than China! especially after godot4

[@SpuCodes]

Others have pointed to this, but to share my personal experience: I am group 1, completely new to everything, I came to the same conclusion as you, to jump right into 4, but then had to switch back to 3.5. The learning resources for complete beginners just aren’t there yet for 4. Yes, all the tutorial makers are switching, but there aren’t enough offerings for complete beginners just yet. While in 3.5 you can do pretty much any 3.x tutorial without problems. And really when you’re just starting out learning to think like a programmer is more important than which language or engine you are learning on, so my advice for now would be to start learning on 3.5, do some small projects, some game jams and then switch either before your first bigger project, or when you have gained enough of an understanding of how programming works that Godot 4’s resources will be enough for you to understand them / once there are enough resources at your level. Use those 0.5-1 years to learn to think like a programmer and learn about game design.

[@bensdecoypoondummy1189]

Hey, I am also in group 1 and I'm about 1-2 weeks into my journey. I know where you're coming from, as it is frustrating when all the tutorials are for older versions - but hear me out: from what (little) I've done so far, many of the tutorials for older versions have people in the comments giving advice and support for how they work in 4.0 - and even when that doesn't happen, it gives you the opportunity to go out and look up/find the answer. When you are comfortable enough to switch to 4.0 you'll have to relearn it anyway. It's happened to me a couple times where something was different from the tutorial so I had to go find out. IMO that *is* how you learn to think like a programmer. Maybe give it another shot? Good luck!

[@SpuCodes]

@@bensdecoypoondummy1189 This is good advice, and I tried it, “sort KZbin comments by newest FTW” but it didn’t work for me. Sooner or later I’d run into something that wasn’t answered in the comments, spend half an hour googling it and by the time I got back I didn’t remember what the context even was within the tutorial. Doing it this way would take me 2-3x as long and I retained next to nothing. This might be different if I was still able to sit down and do 10 hours of tutorials at a time, but I’m getting old, my brain shuts down after a couple of hours. And then you do one tutorial over 2 or 3 days, and the information is so fragmented that nothing sticks. With 0 reward, cause you’re not progressing, but lots of frustration over feeling old and slow and low spoon in general. Even just doing the math: even if I had to learn everything twice at the pace I’m learning 3.5 that would still be faster that learning 4.0, which takes me 3 times longer. (And this doesn’t even account for 4.0’s web-build problems, and web-builds are an important thing for me.) But glad this works for you, my brain just doesn’t want to play that way I guess.

[@bensdecoypoondummy1189]

@SpuCodes fair enough, you gave it a shot and if it doesn't work for you then hey, by all means follow a workflow that helps you learn! Hopefully I won't run into a massive issue trying it my way, but time will tell :P

[@nef36]

@@bensdecoypoondummy1189 Personally, from my personal experience, it's always better to go with what's been proven to work, and let the experts puzzle out making the new stuff work. From my POV, Godot 3.5 still works perfectly well, and since I'm completely new to game deving, I don't really have a reason to go with the newer version that will give me more headaches in exchange for features I probably won't even use while I struggle to make my character jump or something.

[@segsfault]

i'd switch to godot 4 when it becomes stable, when alot of new issues are discovered and fixed...

[@GDScriptDude]

For my latest project I am using Godot 4.0 since I want to get familiar with the new version. I imagine that it could be a bit tough for new people to get to grips with some aspects of it without tutorials. But the error messages seem to be maybe better (more informative) than before. Some of the RC releases were unstable for me, but so far, so good with the stable releases.

[@opusdei1151]

You forgot the main point. There is more learning material in 3.5 (more courses, more tutorials). So in my opinion it is worth to learn both versions.

[@Weahl]

This and a 100% this, I'm new to game development and jumped to Godot 4 because I'm a software engineer, but for people that are just starting, having all those courses could be a game changer.

[@n__m]

one big thing imho to consider is whether you are deploying to html5 - for testing or delivery. if so the process is substantially easier and more robust in Godot 3.5, and there are also a number of rendering features not yet present for web export in Godot 4.0.

[@stayathomedev]

Very good point I overlooked!

[@gregorywatine]

I already installed godot 4.0, but i'm at the beginning of my learning and in fact, the documentation in french for godot 3 is really well made on the official doc. It's not easy to understand the changes, as i'm already trying to understand the basics. And yes, even if i can speak in english, the technical part requires more concentration, so it's even harder when you already have to understand the thing, plus the way to name it 😅

[@kitepz]

I'm using 3.5.2 because pretty much every useful tutorial is written for 3.X right now. and I'm struggling enough with learning gdscript myself, I don't really need an extra layer of challenge of figuring out whether I'm getting an error because of my stupidity or because of some syntax changes in 4.0. besides, as I understand 4.0 was kind of rushed, so I'd like to wait for 4.1 just in case.

[@mrmunkee]

I'm sort of in the first camp. I've mostly fiddled around in Godot 3.5 and 4 without diving in yet. I'm an experienced 3D artist and I chose Godot to utilize for any game stuff I plan to do. Most of what I've done in the engine is setting up 3D stuff and messing around with what I can do with that. One thing I'm really waiting for with 4 is a good 3D terrain tool, which I've heard will eventually be added officially. One thing I have noticed even with older versions of Godot is that other than official documentation which can only really give you info, not technique, is that some aspects of the engine have major holes in regards to the depth of learning about them. One particular thing is that I feel there aren't very many really proper vehiclebody tutorials. There's a lack of them in general, and the ones that do exist just aren't good or deep enough for actually learning IMO.

[@Interference22]

Personal opinion: accept the tutorial shortcomings and bugs of 4.0 and use that version unless you're in the middle of a project. The lack of tutorials won't be a problem for long and what there already is will get you far enough. Starting with 4.0 is much less of a pain than upgrading later: the automated process for converting a project is less than perfect and you're only setting yourself up for another round of tutorials in the future that teach you all the syntax and organisational changes. Skip all that and start optimally. The official documentation is really solid: begin with that.

[@hogandromgool2062]

Seeing as most projects take a few years then yes, this is definitely the way to go about it.

[@hogandromgool2062]

If your maps are made of smaller preab rooms and you're using the navigation system then I'd highly recommend godot 4. Building and baking the navmesh at runtime is so much smoother and some elements just aren't possible in 3.5.

[@harrybutimnot]

Big. Just starting my game journey. Made a couple scratch games and I have python experience, so I have been picking around for an engine. Lmao dude when you said someone would be happy to just take a downloaded character and make it jump, that's me. Thanks for taking the time to make a video like this.

[@hawshimagical]

i see you made a quick recovery from your sickness, thats great. my first instinct is to use godot 3.5 because its pretty much a complete version, and does what i need. but then i remembered how much of a nightmare it was to find any tutorials for blender 2.79 and below. my computer couldnt run the later versions at the time, but the internet does not care. yeah, like it or not, those godot 3 tutorials will all get buried pretty quickly.

[@Ikuti112]

I agree that at this point in time if you are totally new and need a lot of hand holding with courses, 3.5 might be better as start point. This will probably change in 0.5-1 year when 4.0 beginner courses start to come out and some 3.5 courses are updated to be working with 4.0. If you are a bit more experienced with gamedev or godot and are going back into it I say 4.0 and you can still use 3.5 courses, you just need to be prepared to change stuff to fir 4.0. It might be a bit useful since it shows all the changes from old Godot and requires you to understand how to check github issues, old vs new wiki pages etc.

[@sanketsbrush]

I switched to godot 4.01 rc. Trust me, except few things everything else is looks same but perform better. Most of the addons are available now on godot 4.

[@Solitario9475]

I’ve been learning 3.5 because there’s more content to learn from on that version and once I finish that I can easily learn the newer stuff if I need to when there’s more info on it.

[@stayathomedev]

Solid strat

[@rungeon83]

I disagree with new coders learning godot 4, the reason purely when ever you look up tutorials it's nearly always 3.5 and as a newbie to the engine ur gonna want tutorials. This is an issue right now but I'm sure it'll be resolved.

[@karushilpoboutiques]

And i disagree with you.

[@rahmanlinux9602]

currently learning godot 4 & love it :)

[@maromaro5995]

Last week I tried to convert my simple game to Godot 4. I expected some problems, but I was smashed by them. There's a short list of troubles I managed to walk through: missing methods and no info in docs about that, some arrays are now readonly (wtf?) - also nothing about that, physics works different - this one I expected. I gave up, but this was really simple 2d game... Maybe I'll try in a half of year. Now it's too early. No documentation, no help from google.

[@v44n7]

good video! in the past 2 months i have been learning godot 3.5 even watching tutorials for 4.0 and then retro it to 3.5. My question is, should I be worried of using 4.0 because of bugs? I am new into game dev and programming in general, never used unity or unreal for making games. Should I stick to 3.5 because is more stable avoiding bugs that would crush my inexperience game dev in 4.0? or I should just jump into the 4.0 wagen. ( I just realize you just answer my question I the video 10 seconds after ahhaha)

[@GarrettTallent]

Caveat to using godot 4. Godot 4 has issues exporting to web for ios devices. Currently, if you intend to share your games using a website (using the html5 export), godot 3's export will work with more browsers.

[@owdoogames]

One of the issues with 4.0 is the unfinished official documentation. It's put me off switching from 3.5 as an occasional user of Godot for the past few years, so I could imagine it might put off a complete beginner.

[@coluzea]

i definitely encourage group 1 folks to learn 4.0 if possible

[@voc007]

Godot 4, since I am new to it, and have patience for tutorials to arrive. Already used all other engines, so nothing new to me about using the engines. And I want all the candy eye stuff :D And interested in using the OpenXR.

[@Saad69469]

Pov : reading comments more than the video

[@stayathomedev]

POV: ::gets popcorn

[@Elistios]

I first went for the 4.2.1 version that was the latest when I started a few weeks ago but had to go back to 3.5.3 for 2 major reasons: 1-Many things are different in the code to the point where most tutorial out there become irrelevant and there is not so much content about the newer version of godot 4 out there. 2-godot 3.5 came out about the same time where chatGPT 3.5 stopped pulling information out. This mean that if you need a personal godot 3.5.3 free teacher that will help you understand the code and help you fix some of those pesky bugs, 3.5.3 will be something AI will be able to help you with as for godot 4.2.1, it's too new for chatGPT to have any clue about it so it cannot help you that much. I'm not for using AI to make it do everything for you but when it comes to fixing stuff and helping you understand new information, it's exactly like having your own personal teacher that never get tired of you asking thousand of question per day and it will gladly try to help you out at any time of the day :)

[@ajmound790]

4.0 should come with a warning as the web deployment doesn't work with Safari and takes so long to load other browsers time out. Just finished a whole project in 4.0 and only now---at the end---did I realize this. I'm going to have to rebuild everything in 3.5.

[@pranaykumar6648]

I think the best way is to start with 3.5 follow a tutorial and then redo it in 4.0 and learn about the changes this way.

[@mōellctie]

4.0 of course. I have experience with 3.5.1

[@gaisericg9984]

Have to say moving over from Unity, 4.0 is incredible. Attempting to move over back in the 3.0-3.5 days just felt like you were taking a step backwards, having to learn proprietary GDScript compared to full C# libraries was probably the biggest reason but there were so many others that 4.0 just completely removed. At the same time if I was just starting out work on learning a game engine Godot 4.0 would be a complete nightmare due to the lack of information out there. For me 4.0 = Unity minus the spaghetti nightmare of all of it's poorly integrated and tacked on features that instead of actually creating themselves they just buy the rights to from Asset creators and wedge into the engine... and then completely forget about.

[@Holonet01]

While I'm the type that likes to have the latest stuff even when it's not good for me 😂, one reason you might want to stick with 3.x is if you intend to publish to web using c#. There are still no export templates for that in 4. Hopefully there will be sorta soon, but depends on some .NET support.

[@andermetalbrasil]

I think it's important to point out that it's very important to make a backup copy of the project before migrating to Godot 4.

[@einsteinx2]

Or even better, have your project in version control (git) from the start then you can always roll back anything, not just the Godot 4 upgrade.

[@xeteorblaze]

well im using godot 4 for 3d and godot 3.5 for 2d

[@stayathomedev]

Big brain move 👍 you honestly can have multiple instances open so just use both

[@Wh0NeedsFr1ends]

I appreciate the synopsis, but not being able to do Web Exports if you are developing in C# using 4+ is a problem. Thats something which is extremely important to people doing Game Jams, to people who want to deploy a portfolio, etc. Definitely something to mention in a video like this. Would really suck to have something built and then realize you cant publish it the way you want to.

[@wizardscrollstudio]

I have used Godot since the start around 2015/2016 and recently tried to make the jump to 4.0 and is bug ridden mess. Yeah the new features are nice but not necessary for a simple game. I cannot work for more than 10 minutes and not bump into an issue such as editor crashing, ui controls not working correctly, complex code for things that used to be simple in 3, missing functionality, I been considering remaining on 3 for this project then switching to another engine because changes in 4 are too drastic and not necessarily for the better.

[@KaasTVNL]

for learning i am gonna go for 3.5 bc there are way more good courses i can learn the good basics. then i wil move over to 4... i have bin in this same situwation with blender. everything is just in a other place or names but in the and its just a minor change to learn if you already learnd form good sources

[@hawkgamedev]

I'm actually at GDquest doing 3.5 courses to get a good foundation and then move everything to 4.+ am I crazy? I mainly want to do 2D stuff. But unlike new people to Game Dev, I ran with Unity for 1 year, so I have a pretty good understanding of the challenges I'll have when moving to 4.0 I just found that GDQuest is the best way to learn, and having good bases in 3.5 to start 4 is better than starting 4 with no foundations whatsoever, what do you think?

[@stayathomedev]

Not at all. They'll be migrating to 4.0 before too long I think

[@danieldouglasclemens]

I see the problem, that my grfx card is too old for Godot 4, but fine for Godot 3.5

[@YannAbdel]

Please can you make a tutorial on 3d terrain in godot 4

[@Silly_Genius]

Well, the Godot 4 is recently released. So the tutorials, assets and other supports might take a while to come up. But Godot 4 has more stability and the type of platform options compared to Godot 3.5. Also, the changes were mainly on 3D shades, lighting , node changes etc. In my opinion, I'll use Godot 4

[@learningchannel3850]

Can someone please help me? I'm trying to do c# in Godot 4 but oh my non of the other tutorials make sense now. I'm such a beginner and I'm not sure what to do

[@stayathomedev]

I'd try Gdscript first unless you have C# experience. Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, other C# resources may be of some help.

[@mdo]

Godot 4 is amazing, but the reason I'm still with 3.6 is the web build. 3.6 offers reliable stable gles2 web builds that "just work". Godot 4 does not support gles2 anymore and gles3 web builds are just not reliable or stable YET.

[@jakep8484]

Im not trying to be some big developer so its more just for fun for me and only using pygame and game maker a bit before I chose 3.5 since im more into 2d games and there is a lot of videos and documents on 3.5 I figure maybe ill advance to 4.0 in a couple of years when more info is available or if I want to go 3d.

[@AnonPer]

Godot 4 does not work for me: It requires OpenGL 3 or higher, but despite following instructions, updating my video drivers, and everything that I was told to do, it will not work. My computer is just too old I guess, and I do not have the money to buy a new computer or video card, just to run a FREE game making software. Because of this, despite what you are trying to push, I have to stick with 3.5.

[@hector_dgz94]

i am with you, for me i am on the middle of a project in godot 3.5 nut when i am done with it i am leaving godot, i do need opengles 2.0

[@DudeFrom1972]

Interesting video, however, I didn't like the many cuts during the video because it was annoying as there were no natural pauses, it kinda reminds me of the Fireship channel where the dude is awesome, but he chose to cut his videos in a similar way without any pauses in his narration...

[@fpixel7190]

What if youre in your tutorial hell phase of the programming experience, or just kind of new, and want to use chatgp and the plethora of dated YT tutorials?

[@Beryesa.]

I wanted to wait for 4.0 release to learn Godot, but now there's no materials 😓

[@stayathomedev]

They'll be popping up more and more. Plenty to dig into until then

[@DoneCosta]

I'm still using 3.4.4 lol

[@deezburr]

The fuck why?

[@DoneCosta]

@@deezburr I started a project in this version and I haven't finished yet lol

[@jmanpolo5611]

3.5 is likely a safe upgrade from a 3.4 project

[@Ceisriel]

Godot 4 removed opengl 2.0 and now has only opengl 3.0. Only 80% of devices have opengl 3.0 and only 77% have Vulkan. That's a -20% playerbase right there.... just for updating the engine. Without opengl 2.0 there is literally no reason in the world to use Godot at all when there are so many other engines.

[@hector_dgz94]

i am with you, for me i am on the middle of a project in godot 3.5 nut when i am done with it i am leaving godot, i do need opengles 2.0

[@Gupatik]

@@hector_dgz94 you can stick with the 3.5, what's wrong?

[@n00bc0de7]

I have already moved to Godot 6.0. The games just make themselves at this point.

[@GenericInternetter]

Didn't you just release a video about exactly this just 4 weeks ago?

[@paimonbutter]

my issue with 4.0 is chatgpt cant help with code for it as it only writes godot 3 code and insitsts it doesn't know godot 4 code because of its knowledge cut off

[@wh33landaxel1]

If you plan on running HTML5 versions of games on Mac versions of chrome or safari they will crash or run slowly ruining the experience for some users building with Godot 4. Waiting on 4.1 unless I want to build something more sophisticated..

[@MOtherMetroid]

Did #1 and slowly trying to expand on the official tutorial now but getting help is tiresome when people keep ignoring your novice questions. I think the Godot community overrates itself in that regard.

[@alexanderstreng4265]

Bad idea atm to recommend godot 4 for completely new people due to lack of learning material (specifically youtube videos). In the near future this won't be an issue but believe me, we've tried to get a new person to make a small game in Godot 4 and it was kinda impossible because there weren't any guides available on how to make a small game from start to finish.

[@stayathomedev]

Those materials will be coming sooner rather than later. Though there are differences, even 3.5 guides can get you 90% there

[@willft520]

Isn't there less documentation and less examples (projects, templates and demos) to learn from on Godot 4 than there are on Godot 3.5? I wonder about this because you are recommending Godot 4 over Godot 3.5 to people with no experience on game development.

[@saibadam]

I still use the old one idc cause i dont wanna migrate all my code cause if it breaks. Also i dont think it matters for 2d games

[@stayathomedev]

There are some differences but 3.5 is very capable for 2d games.

[@saibadam]

@@stayathomedev the biggest difference i heard is tilemaps witg better autotiling and there is no spacing issue

[@stayathomedev]

Tilemaps are better for sure

[@saibadam]

@@stayathomedev yep

[@successspotu]

Godot 4

[@renji-hjk]

I tried to make an amongus efect that hides the enemy out of your vision in godot 4 and realize that its impossible to make in the new version, so sad

[@stayathomedev]

There was a video about doing just that recently...2d isometric map with fog of war. By lukky I believe

[@NirielWinx]

If you have done less than zero game dev, that is if you have actively destroyed studios and sabotaged development, then switch to Godot 5 already. version = 4 - x, where x is your game dev experience.

[@stayathomedev]

Perfect!

[@godofdream9112]

godot4 oviosly... there is no need to opena a new project on godot3.

[@LittleStupidGodoter]

bla bla bla

[@izzyint]

4.0 sucks at 2D Pixel Art games, use 3.5 for that

[@stayathomedev]

How does it suck for 2d?

[@izzyint]

@@stayathomedev mainly for pixel art games, godot 4 does not include features like pixel snapping, text shadows now have anti aliasing and prolly a few other problems, i hope these get fixed by 4.1

[@Moj206Pejo]

Hi, thank you for your great tips. I have a problem and I feel it is very important. I started with version 4.1 and I noticed that some of the tutorials that are great are for the old version and many of the codes don't work. Is there a big difference in GDscript?

[@sanketsbrush]

Some people: go_dot Other people: godho Tnen comes Google: god of war Godzila Goku Go pro Po***** 😂🤦

[@deezburr]

Use 3.5 if your new

[@idoblenderstuffs]

TLDR: use godot 4