Unity MARS

Unity MARS
Information
Type	Authoring tool
Industry	Augmented reality
Developer	Unity Technologies
License	Paid add-on subscription (US$50/month or US$600/year at launch); later included with Unity Pro, Enterprise and Industry
Supported Devices	iOS, Android and HoloLens (through AR Foundation)
Release Date	June 2020
Website	https://unity.com/products/mars

Unity MARS (Mixed and Augmented Reality Studio) is a deprecated extension for the Unity editor, made by Unity Technologies, for building augmented reality and mixed reality apps that adapt to the physical space around the user. Unity first showed it as "Project MARS" at Unite Berlin in June 2018 and launched it as a paid add-on in June 2020. The package documentation describes it as "a Unity extension that adds new functionality to support augmented and mixed reality content creation", together with companion apps that "provide the ability to address real-world objects and events as GameObjects".

Instead of placing content at fixed coordinates, a developer describes the real-world objects an app needs (for example a raised horizontal surface of at least 0.5 m by 0.5 m) using "proxies" with conditions and actions, then tests the app against simulated rooms inside the editor. MARS sits on top of Unity's AR Foundation framework, and Unity lists iOS, Android and HoloLens as supported platforms.

Unity declared MARS and its Unity AR Companion app deprecated starting with Unity 6.1 in April 2025, and announced in October 2025 that both are no longer supported for production starting with Unity 6.3. It recommends AR Foundation instead.

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Checked every dated claim, price, version, quote and feature description against the cited Unity press release, blog, product page, package changelog and manual, Unity Discussions deprecation notices, App Store listing, Next Reality, Game Developer, PocketGamer.biz, UploadVR, CG Channel and the arXiv paper. About review dates.

History

Project MARS (2018-2019)

Unity announced Project MARS during the augmented reality part of its Unite Berlin keynote on 19 June 2018. Timoni West, then director of XR research at Unity Labs, presented it with the motto "Reality is our build target", and she and Unity Labs engineer Jono Forbes demonstrated face masks and a scene with landscapes on two separate tabletops joined by a virtual land bridge. Next Reality reported that the extension would let developers set spatial parameters such as proximity, plane size and distance relationships with tools instead of coding them, and that its Simulation View included room templates for testing how content reacts to different furniture. Game Developer and PocketGamer.biz reported that Unity planned to ship MARS as an experimental package later in 2018.

That target slipped. When Unity 2018.3 was released in December 2018 without MARS, a company spokesperson told Next Reality that it was now planned for 2019. Unity had also given the tool a session, "The Future of XR", at Unite Los Angeles in October 2018. The package changelog lists the first preview version, 0.1.0-preview, on 27 November 2019, followed by a series of preview builds through May 2020.

Release (2020)

On 27 May 2020, UploadVR reported that Unity would launch the MARS tools on 1 June. Version 1.0.0 of the package is dated 29 May 2020 in the changelog, and Unity's launch press release and blog post are both dated 8 June 2020. In the press release, West, by then Director of Product for XR Tools, said Unity had "identified three of the biggest challenges AR creators face": authoring data-oriented apps visually, testing without leaving the authoring environment, and delivering apps that are "contextually aware".

MARS was sold separately from Unity itself. CG Channel reported that it was available to users of any Unity plan, including the free Personal plan, but only through an additional annual subscription billed at US$50 per month or US$600 per year, and that it worked with Unity 2019.3 or later. Unity offered a 45-day free trial. As an early adopter, Unity named the UK studio Sugar Creative, which used MARS to build Dr. Seuss's ABC AR with Dr. Seuss Enterprises; the blog post also mentioned unnamed early projects for an auto showroom and for factory worker training.

Updates and bundling (2020-2023)

Version 1.1.1 (August 2020) added the Rules workflow, a specialized authoring interface for MARS objects. Version 1.3.0 (March 2021) added settings for tracking several faces where the platform supports it. Version 1.4.0 (November 2021) added meshing APIs with a HoloLens mesh provider and a Project Validation tool, raised the minimum editor version to 2019.4.15f1, and moved the simulation environments out of the base package into a separate Content Manager download.

In February 2022 Unity released the Unity AR Companion app for iOS and Android, previously called the MARS Companion. CG Channel reported that users on the free Personal plan could use it for photogrammetry-based object capture, while environment capture (room scans, reference video and camera paths) and on-device scene editing needed a MARS subscription. The App Store lists version 1.0 on 10 February 2022.

In September 2022, as part of a Unity subscription price increase, Unity said that its Pro, Enterprise and Industrial Collection plans would include MARS, then priced at US$600 per year, with the release of Unity 2022.2. Version 1.5.0 of the package (10 October 2022) states that the "MARS entitlement is enabled by having a Unity Pro license". Version 1.5.1 followed on 4 January 2023.

Deprecation (2025)

On 16 April 2025, Unity announced that "starting with Unity 6.1, Unity MARS is considered deprecated, and no additional features will be developed". It said critical bugs would still be fixed for Unity 6.1, but that MARS was "no longer recommended for production use". The same notice said the subscription entitlement check had been removed from package versions 1.6 and 2.0, so existing users could keep working on Unity 2022 LTS and Unity 6.1 without license validation. Version 2.0.0, dated 22 April 2025 and preceded by a pre-release that fixed Unity 6 script issues, is the last entry in the changelog.

On 28 October 2025, Unity said that MARS and the Unity AR Companion app would no longer be supported for production starting with Unity 6.3, and that there would be no further updates to either. The App Store listing for the companion app carries the same notice. As of October 2026, Unity's MARS product page is marked "Deprecated product".

Features

Proxies, conditions and actions

The core object in MARS is the proxy, a GameObject that stands in for a real-world object the app can detect, "such as a table, a face, or a cat". Components attached to a proxy define how it matches real data:

Concept	Role in MARS
Condition	A restriction that must be met for the proxy to match, for example a horizontal plane
Action	A reaction when the proxy matches or its data changes, for example a callback when a tracked person makes a predefined body pose
Force	A flexible, spring-like component that settles a proxy into its final placement, for example by keeping space between objects or pulling an object closer and into the user's view
Proxy Group	Several real-world objects that must all be present, such as "a room with two tables, a floor, and at least one wall", optionally with relations such as relative elevation
Replicator	Duplicates a proxy or proxy group for each set of matching real-world data until a user-defined limit is reached

Unity called the use of minimum and maximum sizes instead of exact measurements "fuzzy" authoring. In the Simulation View, a developer can drag content into a simulated scene and MARS creates the matching proxies and conditions. The Rules workflow presents these objects in one view and describes layouts and behaviors in plain language. MARS keeps a database of the real-world data it has discovered, on a device or in simulation, and matches proxies against it while the app runs.

Simulation

The Simulation View lets developers test an app inside the editor against synthetic environments, pre-recorded data streams or live streams from a device. It runs either as an "instant" simulation, testing proxies against all available data at a single moment, or as a continuous simulation in which the Device View camera matches proxies as it moves through the simulated environment, as though a user were scanning the surroundings with an AR device. Unity shipped indoor and outdoor environment templates, and developers could also model their own environments or use photogrammetry scans. Session recordings, stored as Timeline assets, can replay walkthroughs of synthetic environments or video used for face tracking.

Templates and tracking types

MARS includes starter scene templates: Blank, Facemask, Tabletop, Miniature (content at one tenth of real-world scale), Game - Simple, Game - Advanced, Factory Training (using image markers as anchors) and Body Tracking. The documentation notes that body tracking was only supported on compatible iOS devices. The documentation also covers face tracking, body tracking, image marker tracking, traits and priority. Landmarks are spatial data such as points, edges or polygons (for example the eyes and mouth on a tracked face) that break real-world data into parts used to anchor or align virtual content.

Supported devices

Unity's product page lists iOS, Android and HoloLens as supported platforms, and states that MARS works as a layer that uses data from AR Foundation or other custom data providers. At launch, UploadVR quoted Unity as listing ARKit, ARCore, Magic Leap and HoloLens devices as deployment targets through AR Foundation. The package documentation lists Unity 2019.4.15f1 or later as the editor requirement and says MARS needs the .NET 4.x Equivalent scripting runtime.

Reception

In a 2021 arXiv paper on an XR prototyping framework, Efstratios Geronikolakis and George Papagiannakis of FORTH and the University of Crete reviewed MARS among AR authoring tools. They wrote that it allowed AR apps to be developed and tested inside the MARS environment "without building the application each time", and described its proxies and "fuzzy authoring" approach.

See also

• Reality Composer
• Mixed Reality Toolkit
• Plane detection
• Spatial mapping