Game Development

Game Development: Unity vs Unreal 

Games have become an essential part of our lives. People love to play their favorite games, especially on mobile due to its easy accessibility. Game Engines such as Unity, Unreal, Godot, and Torque are used to develop PC and mobile games.

The most popular game engines are unity and unreal. It has always been a hot topic for debate among developers on “Which is the best game engine?”. Some say unity and some vote for unreal. Both engines have their own strengths. A comparison of both engines has been made to understand the difference between unity and unreal. This will help you in selecting the best game engine for your game.

Unity and unreal both have their plus points, one can select a suitable game engine based on the following characteristics.

Versatility

A game engine that supports different types of games such as 2D, 3D, AR, VR is surely preferable. Let us have a look what unity and unreal supports:

• 2D: unity is better for 2D games, it has special tools and largely focuses on 2D while you can also make a 2D game using unreal.
• 3D: Unreal provides far better 3D graphics than unity.
• Virtual Reality: Unity overpower unreal in VR. It provides the facility to integrate VR as a plugin.
• Augmented Reality: once again unity scored higher in AR. Unreal also support AR but unity is much better and it also has a more powerful AR system.
• Mobile: Unity is best for mobile games.
• Multiplayer: Unreal is better in multiplayer as it provides integration support. Unity also facilitates multiplayer by using third-party frameworks.

Pricing

Prices play a major role while selecting an Engine for your game. It totally depends on what one can afford. Some features of unity are not included in its free version. You can buy unity’s Pro version for 1500$ or you can get the monthly subscription for 75$. If you have a low budget you can totally go with the free version with no royalties.

Surprisingly Unreal is totally free. One thing I should mention here is you owe royalties to unreal. Unreal has overpowered unity by providing totally free engine, apart from royalties it does not cost much when you are earning good from a game.

Scripting

Unity’s scripting language is C#, which is the upgraded form of C and C++. Unity has its own tutorials for non-programmers which teaches you how to start making your own games. It also has a very large collection of learning material, anyone can learn from there free.

The coolest thing about unreal is that you don’t even have to code, Unreal allows you to use blueprints and you can make a complete game by using tools in the blueprints without writing a single line of code. But if you want to code then it uses C++ language. This really excites you and unreal scored one more higher than unity in its scripting.

Graphics

There is no second thought when it comes to the graphical quality of the Unreal engine. It is the first choice of every big studio. It has impressive graphical models and dynamic lighting. Unity does not perform best when it comes to graphics.

Easy to Use

It is not easy to say which one is easy, unity has a lot of learning material on its site, even if you have never done coding you’ll be able to learn and adapt very easily. On the other side an unreal support blueprint but it does not have much learning material. If you are new then I recommend you to use unity then jump into unreal. Unity is best for 2D games but if you want heavy graphics in your games then you will definitely go with unreal.

Asset Store

Unity has its own asset store where you can find many free resources and some are paid. You don’t have to go any far, everything you need to develop a game in front of you. Unreal does not have any asset store. This makes unity one step ahead of unreal.

Largest Community

Both engines have a large number of active users where users can talk about ideas, games, and game engines. Unreal has a huge community of active users, it has a lot of forum users and fans. Unity on the other hand contains great resources. Its community share their rendering for criticism and also ideas on “Ideas on Game Creation”. The user gets constant updates and learns new skills.

Conclusion

Honestly, It is not easy to decide which one is better, Unity or Unreal? It totally depends on personal preferences. Consider your experience of coding, budget, team size, quality of the product while selecting an engine. So I will leave it to you to decide which game engine suits you the best.

Happy Gaming!

Posted: 05 Dec 2020

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Sana

Joined in Dec 2020

Content and Academic Writer , Game Developer