How do you use prefabs, nested prefabs and prefab variants to keep a Unity project organised?

What the interviewer wants to hear

• Prefabs are reusable templates; edits propagate to instances
• Nested prefabs let a prefab contain other prefabs
• Variants inherit from a base prefab and override some values
• Keep overrides small and apply changes to the right level
• Avoid editing many scene copies by hand

Model answer

I treat prefabs as the building blocks of the game. Anything used more than once, like an enemy, pickup or door, becomes a prefab, so a fix to the prefab updates every instance in every scene. Nested prefabs let me build bigger pieces from smaller ones, for example a room prefab that contains door and light prefabs, while each keeps its own source. Prefab variants are useful for related objects: a base Goblin prefab with variants for Archer and Shaman that only override a few values or add a component. I try to keep scene overrides small and push real changes up to the prefab or variant, otherwise it becomes hard to know where a value comes from. The overrides dropdown helps review this.

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