Should I use Unreal Engine?

[jonnym]

Hi there,

I’m looking for assistance on choosing a game engine, and would like insight from this great community and its Teaching Assistants. I am posting here as I would like to gain some perspective from the experienced Unreal Engine community members. I hope that is acceptable.

I understand that Unreal Engine 5 is pretty standard for 3d games that utilize higher graphic fidelity, but comes at a cost with a steeper learning curve. I’ve always heard good things about Unity, especially for solo developers, or small teams, and now we have Godot. Sometime last year I believe there was some controversy surrounding Unity and how it would be licensed but I do not know enough about it and how it has affected the current state of using Unity.

That being said, I am looking for an engine that will allow me to mostly create 3d games with varied art direction. Multiplayer functionality is a requirement, even though it may be a feature that needs to be worked towards as I understand it is a complex subject. In terms of genre, my areas of interest revolve around arena shooters, survival, horror, narrative, action, i.e. Quake, The Long Dark, Left 4 Dead, Chivalry, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, etc.

In terms of art direction, I would like to be able to work somewhere between heavily stylized to light realism. Regarding development, I would like something that is accessible as a solo developer or working with a small team, as I am more concerned about the programming/developer side of things. I have extensive artistic skills covering a wide range of the game art pipeline. This area is not of any real concern at the moment.

If anyone could provide insight as to which engine I should choose or how I can determine which is most suitable for my needs, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

[Jattier]

My advice, having worked with both Unity and Unreal for a few years now, is to spend a month or so with each engine you’re interested in. You may discover you simply cannot stand C# or hate working in blueprints. Both Unity and Unreal are great engines. Both have their weak spots and both excel in their areas. It’s more of a personal choice.

You may also find you want to write one game in one engine and prefer to write a different game in the other due to your game’s needs. For example, you’re not going to write a VisionOS game in Unreal right now, you can’t. You must use Unity, specifically 2022.

Whichever engine you choose, the concepts are the same. No time will be wasted learning one then switching to the other.