Install Unity’s new input system

Objective: Install new Unity input system into a project

Unity’s new input system is a great way to handle multiple inputs for your game. If you’re making a game and you need a way to have both keyboard and controller controls then using the old input system will create a lot of work for yourself in the long run.

Using Unity’s new input system can look overwhelming but once you get started with it, then you won’t go back.

The first thing to do is to install the new input system through the package manager window.

Window -> package manager. Once it is open make sure that you’re inside the unity registry window and search for the input system.

Once it is installed it will ask you to restart the project with the new system enabled. Click enable/yes and wait for the project to restart.

Once the project has restarted, you can now make sure that your project can accept inputs from the old system and the new one. Go to File -> build settings -> player settings. Once the window opens you need to click on other settings and scroll down until you find “Active input handling”.

In the drop down menu you will see you can select either of the inputs or both, select both and restart the project again.

The other thing to keep in mind is that if you would like to use the new input system that the .NET api needs to be at version 4.x if it is below that then the new system will not function correctly.

That is it for installing the new input system in Unity. Make sure to check back for how to set up Actions and action maps.

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