If you’re an aspiring game developer—even if you’ve already made a couple of projects—you probably have asked this question a number of times. After all, it’s hard to know which game engine you should use. This article will break down 5 of the most common, and publicly available, game engines giving you the pros and cons of using each. Thus, by the end you’ll likely have a better idea of which one you’d like to use.
Unity: Ideal for Aspiring Indie developers
Unity is probably one of the first game engines you ever heard about. And for good reason. Unity game engine is one of the most versatile engines available today. It’s used by people of many skill levels from hobbyists to professional AAA teams.
However, Unity is probably the most popular game engine among indie game developers. This is because it’s user friendly, has a huge community, has extensive tools available on the asset store and works well for a variety of use cases—namely 2D, 3D and VR.
Unity is also totally free to download and develop with, it’s pricing only kicking in once you publish your game—the price depending on your game’s revenue.
Unity can also deploy to over 25 platforms; including mobile, consoles and PC.
Altogether this makes Unity a great all-purpose game engine and perhaps the most popular one out there.
While we mentioned it being user friendly, that doesn’t mean it’s easy for people with no experience though. So be prepared for a steep learning curve—just like any of these engines.
Unreal Engine: Ideal for Aspiring AAA developers
Over the past 10 years Unreal Engine has grown to be the most premium, publicly available game engine. Used widely to produce graphically impressive games alongside managing animation and effects within film and television productions—just to name two of its many use cases.
Unreal is best for AAA game development, as its ceiling is incredibly high. Offering some of the most impressive gaming tech available on the entire market. Games like Fortnite, produced by Epic Games themselves, are testament to the stability and viability of this game engine. Speaking of, if you ever need a break from game dev you can blow off some steam in Fortnite with some extra fortnite vbucks.
Unreal is considered slightly more complex than Unity. In part due to the fact it uses C++; a slightly more complex programming language than Unity’s C#. However, Unreal also offers Blueprints, a visual programming tool aimed at non-programmers.
Unreal is best for people aiming to produce AAA style games, or devs aiming to be hired by AAA studios.
Godot: Ideal for Open-source enthusiasts and hobbyists
Godot is the quieter little cousin of Unreal and Unity. It’s main attraction is the fact that it is fully open source. Meaning that you don’t need to pay for any licensing fees to use the engine, like most other engines.
Godot supports 2D, 3D and even some VR and is designed with beginners and indie developers in mind, making it a great tool for people looking to make smaller, indie projects.
It is also incredibly lightweight, with the entire game engine clocking in at less that 100MB. This means that it’s very effective for developing games on less capable devices such as cheap laptops. Again making it a great option to begin your game dev journey with.
Ultimately Godot isn’t as powerful as Unity or Unreal, but it doesn’t aim to be. It aims to be an open-source alternative which puts its users and community’s interests in front of the any company interests.
GameMaker Studio 2: Ideal for 2D
This game engine is fully 2D. But because of that fact, it offers a low barrier to entry compared to other 3D or composite game engines. GameMaker is hugely popular for exactly this reason, offering developers a simpler and more efficient workflow to get their games made. This makes it an extremely accessible game engine for new developers and indie developers.
Don’t let these restrictions make you think that GameMaker isn’t capable, though. Many great games have been created within this engine. And while many developers who start in GameMaker often move to other engines down the line, GameMaker offered many of them an accessible, engaging and quick introduction to game development. Teaching them transferable skill faster than other, more complex engines.
Twine: Ideal for text-based games
This is an oddball of a game engine, but it is by far the most accessible. Twine doesn’t offer a traditional method of making games. Instead it offers an incredibly easy to pick up way of making text (and image) based games. While it’s never going to let you create a 3D platformer or a VR experience, Twine is excellent for writers and other artists who want to create interactive experiences without needing to learn a complex and cumbersome game engine.
Twine is great for visual novels and other lightly interactive media. Offering an incredibly low barrier to entry, a simple interface and excellent documentation.
Overall, all game engines have their pros and cons. Because of this, you will likely want to ask yourself one question: what do you want to make? If it’s all about graphics: Unreal. If it’s an indie 3D game: Unity or Godot. If it’s a 2D RPG: Game Maker. And if it’s a text based game: Twine.
But there’s one more complexity to consider: you likely don’t know what you want to make… or at least what you’ll want to be making a few years from now. But wait, don’t worry. That’s not a problem. Thanks to most game engines trying to achieve the same thing, almost all the skills you learn in one will be transferable to the others. Meaning that if you start in the user-friendly Godot, you’ll still be able to utilise most of your skills, knowledge and expertise in Unity or Unreal.
So because all these game engines have clear ideal use cases, the truth is that many developers will find themselves shuffling between them depending on the needs of their game. The key part is that you have experience in making games, not in a specific engine. So whichever engine gets you motivated to create is the correct engine for you.
