What is the best game engine: is Unreal Engine right for you?

gamesindustry.biz:

For developers just starting in the industry, the task of choosing the best game engine can be daunting. Here, we'll try to address many of the issues concerning one of the most popular game engines, Unreal Engine, so you can see if it's the right game engine for your project.

You can read our other in-depth guides on all the major game engines from this page.

Photorealism is probably the first word that comes to mind when thinking about Unreal Engine. If you've ever looked at a cut-scene wondering if it's a real-life image or created from scratch, chances are you're playing a game built with Epic Games' technology.

Over the years, Epic has presented tech demos showing what Unreal is capable of, from ray tracing to real-time technology, to physics and destruction systems. Such capabilities make it the preferred engine in the AAA space.

This has continued with the current iteration of Epic’s tech, Unreal Engine 5. Released in April 2022, this latest version comes with the brand new Lumen dynamic lighting system and Nanite, which allows for highly detailed objects in-game.

When revealing the tech back in May 2020, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney said that Unreal Engine 5 was going to be the "foundation for a new generation of games."

Upon release, the company’s VP of engineering – Nick Penwarden – discussed broader ambitions, saying that the tech was part of Epic’s mission to have Unreal Engine be the No.1 player "for creating real-time 3D content, for creating the next generation of content and shared experiences across all mediums, whether it is video games, film, or live interactive experiences."

Unreal's photorealism is one of the reasons why the engine is widely used outside of games too, in sectors such as architecture,