We entered the beta phase for Godot 4.2 last week, with 4.2 beta 1. If you missed that release, have a look at the release notes for an overview of the key changes in Godot 4.2.

Since that first beta release, we fixed a number of bugs reported by the community, so we’re now publishing a second beta snapshot to validate those improvements, and iterate closer to the release candidate stage.

Jump to the Downloads section, and give it a spin right now, or continue reading to learn more about improvements in this release. You can also try the Web editor or the Android editor for this release. If you are interested in the latter, please request to join our testing group to get access to pre-release builds.

The illustration picture for this article is taken from ENDLESS EXPRESS, a fast-paced pixel art run & gun by jijigri Games. It was made with Godot 4 and has just been released for free on itch.io. You can follow the developer on Twitter for updates and future game projects.

What’s new

For an overview of what’s new overall in Godot 4.2, have a look at the release notes for 4.2 beta 1, which cover a lot of the changes. This blog post only covers the changes between beta 1 and beta 2.

57 contributors submitted 95 improvements for this release. You can review the complete list of changes with our interactive changelog, which contains links to relevant commits and PRs for this and every previous release. Below are the most notable changes compared to 4.2-beta1:

  • 2D: Fix tilemap live editing while game is running (GH-83146).
  • 2D: Allow disabling the built-in tilemap navigation (GH-83273).
  • 2D: Fix cannot update remote after disabling use_global_coordinates in RemoteTransform2D (GH-83323).
  • 2D: Fix screen center position returned for rotated Camera2D (GH-83427).
  • 2D: Fix bug where TileMap wouldn’t update material correctly on assignment (GH-83475).
  • 2D: Allow normal maps on TileMaps that use texture padding (GH-83489).
  • 3D: Fix grid snapping for box shape gizmos (GH-82381).
  • 3D: Enable UV2 on primitive meshes when using the MeshInstance3D context menu (GH-82937).
  • Animation: Limit animation audio clip inspector offset sliders to clip length (GH-82627).
  • Animation: Automatic reconnection of nodes in blend tree (GH-83534).
  • Audio: Fix OGG audio loop offset pop (GH-80452).
  • C#: Improve diagnostic messages and add help link (GH-80489).
  • C#: Fix lookup for singleton instance types (GH-83249).
  • C#: Allow exporting games without C# (GH-83422).
  • C#: Fix generated nested class order (GH-83532).
  • Core: Add error messages to the native menu and file dialogs callback (GH-83181).
  • Core: Add missing double-precision flag for Vector4 & Projection in encode_variant (GH-83202).
  • Editor: Fix code editor scrolling experience on track pads (GH-73502).
  • Editor: Don’t remove favorite files in EditorFileDialog (GH-82537).
  • Editor: Fix loading floating dock layout (GH-82742).
  • Editor: Fix debugger behaviour with multi-session debugging (GH-82868).
  • Editor: Project Manager: Open project when “Enter” is pressed when the search box is focused (GH-83210).
  • Editor: Don’t try updating wrong NodePaths in resources (GH-83263).
  • Editor: Disallow ‘Make Local’ command on inherited nodes (GH-83386).
  • Editor: Fix StringName leaks in GDExtension, core, and editor themes (GH-83562).
  • GDExtension: Fix missing editor singletons when dumping extension api (GH-83239).
  • GDExtension: Prevent issues with the editor trying to reload GDExtensions through its usual mechanism (GH-83285).
  • GDExtension: Add brief description in GDExtension API dump with docs (GH-83318).
  • GDScript: Fix incorrect error message for utility functions (GH-78882).
  • GDScript: Fix modifying base script exports not propagating to derived scripts (GH-83123).
  • GDScript: Code Editor: Fix regression with using doc comments for code regions (GH-83216).
  • GDScript: Fix unresolved datatype for incomplete expressions (GH-83257).
  • GUI: Bitmap fonts: Add support for scaling (GH-80605).
  • GUI: Fix ColorPicker deferred mode not working for sliders (GH-80916).
  • GUI: Fix SpinBox will reset unsubmitted text when redrawing (GH-81638).
  • GUI: Fix incorrect offset of PopupMenu separator icons (GH-83517).
  • Input: Fix Input.is_action_just_pressed flicker on joypad axes (GH-82056).
  • Multiplayer: Copy network authority when instancing placeholders (GH-82846).
  • Multiplayer: Fix synchronizer init and reset (GH-83264).
  • Multiplayer: Fix “on change” indexed properties (GH-83279).
  • Navigation: Fix enabling NavigationRegion3D saved disabled (GH-83365).
  • Navigation: Fix “Navigation map synchronization error” when using NavigationRegion2D (GH-83568).
  • Navigation: Fix NavRegion sync error messages (GH-83574).
  • Network: Web: Fix WebSocket returning empty close-reason (GH-79407).
  • Particles: Fixed multiple particle issues: division by zero, color ramp override, scale dependent on amount ratio (GH-83488).
  • Porting: Add method to check if filesystem is case sensitive (GH-82957).
  • Porting: Android: Fix the timeframe when the Android gestures properties are retrieved (GH-83173).
  • Porting: Android: Bump the Java version to version 17 (GH-83515).
  • Porting: iOS: Add project settings for AVAudioSessionCategory (GH-81196).
  • Porting: macOS: Fix crash when using system default menu shortcuts (GH-83243).
  • Rendering: Rewrite the GPU Lightmapper’s indirect logic to match Godot 3.5’s CPU Lightmapper (GH-82068).
  • Rendering: Sanitize tangents when creating mesh surfaces to avoid triggering the compressed mesh path in the shader (GH-83179).
  • Rendering: Fix OpenGL directional shadow last split fading (GH-83252).
  • Rendering: Fix disabling depth prepass break opaque materials (GH-83371).
  • Rendering: Fix Mobile renderer shader instance uniform access (GH-83400).
  • Shaders: Close shader in Shader Editor tab when deleting shader file in FileSystem panel (GH-83137).
  • Shaders: Fix parameter shader node not declared when only connected to a VaryingSetter (GH-83189).
  • Shaders: Fix bool varying’s generated code will be modified with flat (GH-83194).
  • Thirdparty: openxr: Sync with upstream 1.0.30 (GH-82582).
  • Thirdparty: ThorVG: update to v0.11.1 (GH-83281).

This release is built from commit f8818f85e (see README).

Downloads

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Standard build includes support for GDScript and GDExtension.

.NET build (marked as mono) includes support for C#, as well as GDScript and GDExtension.

  • .NET build requires .NET SDK 6.0 or 7.0 installed in a standard location.
  • To export to Android, .NET 7.0 or later is required. To export to iOS, .NET 8.0 is required. Make sure to set the target framework in the .csproj file.

While engine maintainers try their best to ensure that each preview snapshot and release candidate is stable, this is by definition a pre-release piece of software. Be sure to make frequent backups, or use a version control system such as Git, to preserve your projects in case of corruption or data loss.

Known issues

There are currently no known issues introduced by this release.

The previous beta 1 introduced a change to the mesh format which you might experience as some nagging warnings and slowdowns when opening a 3D project. To solve it, you need to resave all meshes to commit the changes (GH-83287). We’re working on improving that UX so it’s done automatically (GH-83613).

With every release we accept that there are going to be various issues, which have already been reported but haven’t been fixed yet. See the GitHub issue tracker for a complete list of known bugs.

Bug reports

As a tester, we encourage you to open bug reports if you experience issues with this release. Please check the existing issues on GitHub first, using the search function with relevant keywords, to ensure that the bug you experience is not already known.

In particular, any change that would cause a regression in your projects is very important to report (e.g. if something that worked fine in previous 4.x releases, but no longer works in 4.2 beta 2).

Support

Godot is a non-profit, open source game engine developed by hundreds of contributors on their free time, as well as a handful of part or full-time developers hired thanks to generous donations from the Godot community. A big thank you to everyone who has contributed their time or their financial support to the project!

If you’d like to support the project financially and help us secure our future hires, you can do so using the Godot Development Fund platform managed by Godot Foundation. There are also several alternative ways to donate which you may find more suitable.