The Rider 2025.2 Release Candidate Is Here!

Sasha Ivanova

Rider 2025.2 is shaping up to be a big release – especially if you’re a game developer. This update introduces powerful new debugging features for Unity, Unreal Engine, and Godot, including source-level shader debugging, mixed-mode debugging for native and managed code, and stepping time improvements.

Beyond game dev, Rider 2025.2 delivers a range of enhancements for performance, observability, and AI-powered productivity. With the new OpenTelemetry plugin, a reworked Monitoring tool window, and support for connecting external AI clients via MCP (Model Context Protocol), this release will help you build more performant and stable applications – and enjoy the process, too.

Download the RC and explore the changes:

Release highlights

Reworked Monitoring tool with automatic issue detection

The Monitoring tool window has been entirely reimagined to make performance optimization for .NET applications simpler and more insightful. You’ll find new interactive charts, automatic issue detection on Windows, and seamless integration with Rider’s bundled profilers, dotTrace and dotMemory. With just a couple of clicks, you can navigate from a performance issue to the responsible method in the editor.

OpenTelemetry plugin for in-IDE runtime observability

Rider now offers an OpenTelemetry plugin, bringing runtime metrics and logs directly into your IDE. You can visualize app behavior, generate architecture diagrams, and click through from logs to the exact source code – all without leaving Rider or opening an external dashboard. Learn more about the new tool here.

The OpenTelemetry plugin also integrates with MCP Servers, allowing AI tools to access logs, architecture diagrams, and other observability data.

One-click MCP server setup to connect external AI clients to Rider

Starting with version 2025.2, JetBrains IDEs come with an integrated MCP server, allowing external clients such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, and others to access tools provided by the IDE. This provides users with the ability to control and interact with JetBrains IDEs without leaving their application of choice.

For external clients like Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, VS Code, and Windsurf, configuration can be performed automatically. Go to Settings | Tools | MCP Server, click Enable MCP Server, and in the Clients Auto-Configuration section, click Auto-Configure for each client you want to set up for use with the MCP server. This will automatically update their JSON configuration. Restart your client for the configuration to take effect.

Performance improvements

Improved memory consumption

We’ve fine-tuned Rider’s garbage collection settings, reducing peak managed memory usage by GC up to 20% – especially helpful when working on large codebases.

Faster debugger stepping

Stepping through code is now snappier, even when working with complex watches like large Unity objects or LINQ expressions. Rider now cancels unnecessary evaluations earlier for a smoother debugging experience.

Code analysis and language support

Extended C# 14 support

Rider 2025.2 brings initial support for the latest additions in C# 14, as well as a range of other improvements to code analysis. Here are some highlights:

• Extension members: Initial support for code completion, usage search, and refactorings.
• Partial events and constructors.
• Null-conditional assignments using a?.b = c and a?[i] = c.
• User-defined compound assignment operators.

Roslyn support

Roslyn support in this release includes enhanced CompletionProvider functionality, enabling richer context-aware code completion through analyzers and community packages. It also introduces Roslyn suppressors, which silently suppress diagnostics in the background to reduce noise and improve clarity in the editor.

F# improvements

The F# plugin brings better import suggestions, smarter code annotations, improved type inference, and fixes for interop issues and F# scripts.

Debugger updates

Native debugging improvements

• Low-level exception suppression: You will now be able to prevent Rider from breaking on framework-level assertions like int3, either globally or at runtime.
• Step filters: Skip over library functions by treating Step Into as Step Over for selected methods.
• Pause All Processes: Coordinate debugging across multiple processes with new actions to pause, resume, or stop them together.
• Remote native debugging: Attach to native processes on a remote machine via SSH. [Windows only]

Game development

Unity

• Shader debugging: Debug ShaderLab code in Rider using the integrated Frame Viewer with full support for breakpoints, draw calls, texture inspection, and more. [Windows only]
• Mixed-mode debugging: Step seamlessly between managed (C#) and native (C++) code in Unity projects. [Windows only]
• Unity Profiler integration is now enabled by default to display profiling results directly in your editor.

Unreal Engine

• Show Usages for UINTERFACE in Blueprints.
• Code completion for BlueprintGetters and Setters.
• .uproject loader suggestions: Use the native .uproject format instead of generating solution files, simplifying project setup on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Godot

For Godot development, Rider now bundles a new GDScript plugin, providing:

• Smarter completions for nodes and resources.
• Ctrl+Click navigation, the Rename refactoring, and Find Usages.
• Scene Preview tool window with interactive tree, parent method highlights, and performance monitors.
• Deeper code inspections, stricter untyped value handling, and many fixes for test running and C++ build scenarios.

Web and database development

TypeScript-Go language server support

Rider 2025.2 introduces experimental support for the new TypeScript-Go language server, bringing improved performance and modern architecture to TypeScript development.

You can enable it in your project by installing the @typescript/native-preview package as a dependency in place of TypeScript. Rider will automatically detect and use the correct language server.

SQL project support 

Rider now provides support for SQL database projects via a new bundled plugin. The plugin works out of the box and delivers a smoother experience when working with SQL database projects.

Deprecations and notices

• Code coverage for Mono and Unity has been removed in this release due to low usage and high maintenance costs. Coverage may return once Unity adopts CoreCLR.
• Dynamic Program Analysis (DPA) will be sunset in Rider 2025.3, with parts of its functionality integrated into the new Monitoring tool window for a more consistent performance analysis experience.

You can download and install Rider 2025.2 RC from our website right now:

We’d love to hear what you think. If you run into any issues or have suggestions, please let us know here in the comments section, over on our issue tracker, or on our social media – X and Bluesky.

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