Release candidate: Godot 4.7 RC 1

Godot 4.7 has hit Release Candidate 1, which means the engine team considers the planned feature set complete and is now concentrating on showstopper regressions. The snapshot is built from commit a4f5e8cdd, and the release notes say production-ready environments can begin integrating it, though community testing is still essential before the final stamp goes on.

The biggest headline features were already covered in the beta 1 post, but this RC still matters because it includes the last round of fixes before release. Notable items in this snapshot include HDR output support, the Godot Asset Store, drawable textures, and a batch of regression fixes across 3D, animation, core, editor, GDScript, GUI, input, and rendering. That includes deadlock fixes in ResourceLoader and CanvasRenderRD, plus rendering fixes for Metal and OpenGL.

For developers, this is the point where upgrade testing becomes practical rather than speculative. If you maintain an existing project, the recommendation is still to make a backup or use version control before moving to the RC. Godot is also explicitly asking testers to report regressions, especially anything that worked in earlier 4.x releases but breaks here, because RC-stage work is limited to critical issues.

The release also reinforces the project’s funding model: Godot is still maintained by volunteers and a small paid team, so donations are being actively encouraged. There are builds for Linux, macOS, Windows, plus Web, XR, and Android editor options, which makes this a broad test target rather than a narrow desktop-only preview.