Unity Vs Unreal: The Ultimate Showdown of gaming engines

Gaming engines are the soul of all video games that exist today. If it weren't for game engines, we wouldn't be enjoying hyper-realistic games like Forza Horizon and Days Gone.

Game developers like ChicMic, an Unreal game development company, rely on game engines to create graphic-rich games. Currently, there are two gaming engines that are ruling the market: they are Unreal Engine and Unity Engine. But which one is the best?

What are Unity and Unreal Engines? A short introduction

Unity Engine

Unity Technologies developed the Unity Engine in 2005 for all sorts of game development. The company wanted to offer a versatile and capable game development tool to all developers. The engine has undergone significant updates to stay relevant and the sheer number of users proves its capability. Irrespective of the fact whether a developer is a pro or amateur, Unity Engine is still accessible.

As realistic 3D development becomes popular, the engine has penetrated other industries as well.

Unreal Engine

Tim Sweeny of Epic Games developed the first Unreal Engine in 1995 for the first-person shooter Unreal. The game hit the market in 1998 and became an instant hit. Soon, Epic Games started licensing Unreal Engine to developers outside the company. Thus began the rise of one of the best game development tools in the world.

Epic Games even gave open access to the Unreal Engine source code, which invited more game development with Unreal Engine.

Unity Vs. Unreal: how do they stack up?

Coding

Unity uses C# language, while Unreal uses C++. From a developer’s point of view, C# is easier to use than C++. This means a developer with little C# knowledge can easily get into Unity Engine.

On the flip side, Unreal Engine encourages designing without writing codes since it uses a proprietary language called Blueprint. All you have to do is create and connect nodes to develop game logic.

Graphics

Unreal contains ready-to-use preset tools like lens flare, post-processing, and volumetric lights with significant customization options. The engine offers a material editor with precise lighting and shadow combination that gives a polished appearance. This makes developers giggle like a teen.

In comparison, the Unity Engine struggles with the lighting system. Although it supports advanced techs like GI and PBR, it lacks shadow polish and detailing. The engine compensates for the absence of a material editor with support for occlusion maps, base textures, etc. These features still produce high graphic quality.

Community Size

Given how popular they are, there is a strong community base for both engines. The communities actively interact on Reddit, YouTube, forums, and other channels. When you compare the numbers, Unity enjoys a slightly larger community, but the Unreal community is constantly growing.

We can observe a few things: Larger community means a larger knowledge base and more people means more answers to your questions.

Performance

Performance is a tough category to measure for the best gaming engine. Some variables that you must address are; world size, object quantity in the game, and the quality of different textures. And these variables depend more on the developers as both engines use separate SDKs.

On the other hand, Epic integrates Incredibuild with Unity Engine which speeds up shader compilation and code builds. Unity Engine does not have such integration.

Some questions you need to ask yourself:

What kind of game do you want to develop?

Unity and Unreal Engines are highly sophisticated and support 2D and 3D game rendering. Meanwhile, Unity Engine is more engaging and helpful for 2D game development. It offers a straightforward user interface and 2D tools.

If you want to develop AAA games with complex features, Unreal is the go-to engine. Epic games actually targeted big–budget and expansive games with their engine.

What platforms are you targeting with your game?

Currently, there are several platforms for players to enjoy different game genres with ease. While both Unreal and Unity Engine engines support cross-platform channels, Unity has comparatively more integration options.

For example, you can develop a mobile game using both Unreal and Unity engines. But developers rely on Unity Engine more since it is easier for 2D game development and scale down to low-end hardware.

On the other hand, if you want to create heavy games for Playstation or Xbox, you can use either engine.

Concluding note

Both Unreal and Unity Engine engines share huge capabilities and features between them. And as the gaming industry grows constantly, the requirements for each engine evolve as well.

But if you are an amateur developer who wants to get into the game, Unity Engine is the right option. It uses an easier programming language (C##) and heavily supports 2D and 3D game development. Unreal Engine is the ideal choice to create graphic-intensive games and suits more experienced developers.