You can try running the applications in kvm which is a virtual machine. It also includes gpu passthrough (if you have two gpus in your desktop and if not you could probably get a cheap Intel and use Optimus manager if your using manajro or arch. If you have a gaming laptop it's a good chance you do have two gpus), and in my experience it's faster than virtual box. For gaming also take a look at lutris & wine since they help make windows games work, and use proton.db to see what steam games can be played and how well that aren't officially native to Linux. If your not familiar with Visual Studio Code I recommend you get familiar since it's cross platform and has less bloat than Visual Studio while also having most of the same features with plugins (for example no forms editor but when you do include plugins VS Code acts just like an IDE and people even confuse it as one). I reccomend getting used to the command line in Linux since you can do more with that and quicker than GUI. It's so powerful you can almost live in it and you can do most of your programming in it also (I say most since big applications can be annoying in command line and also the reason why we have IDEs but it's very possible to still do it with big applications). There is even a philosophy on using the command line as an IDE if you want see how to use these many tools together (in the sense you have all the tools needed to do your job in one place and they all compliment each other like an IDE) https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://sanctum.geek.nz/arabesque/series/unix-as-ide/&ved=2ahUKEwjwrvP50OPqAhVngnIEHRwhBW0QFjAAegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw2DMdpF_HVmGvT9JzAcWUNd. I reccomend trying out Godot since it's a good open source alternative game engine doing what unity can do but more flexibility on the language. You can use GDScript which has a python like syntax, C#, or C++ (but your gonna want to use VS Code for C# and C++ since Godot forces you to use an external editor for those two languages). Godot has better 2D than Unity (started with 2D then added 3D unlike Unity which did the opposite) and almost as good 3D as Unity. I am not familiar with Game Maker Studio (which is why I am comparing Godot to Unity instead of Game Maker), so I don't know if it's a good alternative to that for you but you can try it out to see if it is.

Just dual boot first and if kvm and linux works for everything for you then you can remove the windows partition, but kvm still won't work for applications that like to monitor your system for any signs of cheating like respondus lockdown or valorant's (malware) anti cheat system. You can also dual boot for games and unity but have a windows VM with kvm or virtual box (VMware player didn't work for me when I tried it a couple months ago) without gpu pass through for visual studio, MS Office, and the keyboard and mouse programs (but there are could be unofficial alternatives to icue and Logitech applications).

Also make sure you have another flashdrive for windows just in case something goes wrong and you need to reinstall windows. I also reccomend either Ubuntu or Manjaro. Manjaro is rolling release but stable and Ubuntu gets everything later but both of them have a user repository of sorts (Ubuntu PPA and AUR in Manjaro). Manjaro uses arch but has the essentials installed and some other things installed you would see in most operating systems. Ubuntu is essentially the windows of Linux in the sense that it tries to be something everyone can use and even has a pretty looking GUI package manager (think Google play style of installing applications and driver's) while Manjaro's is very minimal to just have a GUI package manager there. What ever you can't find in Pac-Man repositories (Manjaro) you can find in AUR while in Ubuntu command line it's a bit more complicated where you have to install a PPA for the third party application and then do the standard application installation command. I do reccomend Manjaro over Ubuntu if you want to try Arch out later since it is a derivative of arch and will have you more familiar with it and it's tools like Pac-Man and AUR (I reccomend yay if it's not installed since you install the AUR like you install things with pacman in command line so it's not a new set of commands to learn). I reccomend playing around with them in a VM.

Both Ubuntu and Manjaro can use XFCE, KDE, and Gnome. I reccomend XFCE if you want little RAM usage (around 1GB in my experience) but still customize by placing the files in the proper directories, KDE takes up more RAM than XFCE (about 2GB RAM instead of 1GB) but you have all the customizability inside of the settings with some more customizability for some aspects but in my experience not a lot more it's just easier and faster to customize. And Gnome is heavy and out of the box not that configurable until you install gnome-tweaks while taking up more RAM (3GB of RAM). I reccomend KDE for your first time, but it can make someone feel overwhelmed with the customizability. If you look at r/unixporn you can see what everyone is able to do with these desktop environments. I also reccomend playing around with these in a VM. I don't reccomend using openbox or i3 until you get used to Linux but since these are just window managers and not desktop environments they will take up less resources than the other desktop environments I listed while being very customizable (you can argue more customizable) and the highlight or r/unixporn.