What's New

What's new with the release of MonoGame 3.8.1

The MonoGame 3.8.1 release marks some big changes since 3.8.0 in how we build and distribute.

Note

Refer to the CHANGELOG for a more complete list of the changes.

.NET 6 Support

We now support .NET 6 exclusively. This brings us up to date with the latest improvements in the .NET ecosystem and allows for exciting new features like .NET NativeAOT Runtime and much easier distribution of your games for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Visual Studio 2022 extension

MonoGame 3.8.1 now comes with an optional Visual Studio extension which will install all the MonoGame project templates and will allow for quick access to the MGCB Editor.

This extension is available for Visual Studio 2022, and Visual Studio 2022 for Mac.

Visual Studio 2019 and prior are no longer supported

Since .NET 6 is not supported by Visual Studio 2019, starting with MonoGame 3.8.1 it will no longer be possible to build games with it.

Moving forward, we will only support Visual Studio 2022, and Visual Studio 2022 for Mac.

If you need to use Visual Studio 2019, we encourage you to stick to MonoGame 3.8.0.

JetBrains Rider and Visual Studio Code can be used regardless of the version of MonoGame.

Last version to support 32bit Windows

MonoGame 3.8.1 will be the last version to support building and running 32bit games on Windows.

This is motivated by the fact that 32bit players are nearly extinct (less than 0.24% of the Steam user base). It will also help developers with less complex distribution and less confusing debug/build experiences.

Apple silicon (M1+) support

Games built using the DesktopGL platform and targeting osx-arm64 will now run natively on Apple silicon without Rosetta emulation.

However, it is not yet possible to use the MGCB or the MGCB Editor on Apple silicon, unless you are running the osx-x64 variant of the .NET SDK (and therefore using Rosetta emulation). We are working toward resolving this inconvenience.