This beautiful world of game engines opened its doors to everyone due to the low price (or no payment at all). As news spread that Unity is the game engine of choice for developing independent and mobile games, many indie game developers finally have access to it. Even big game studios migrated from their previous engines to Unity or Unreal. It has become necessary for game developers seeking employment to be proficient in Unity or Unreal. This popularity had to be considered while employing staff members because using a specialised or home-made game engine would have put the studios’ ability to hire game developers at danger.
The statistics also provide a pretty clear picture. These two engines are now dominating the video game engine market. With a combined market share of 48% for Unity and 13% for Unreal Engine, they are both serious competitors.
In other words, contrasting Unity with Unreal is almost too obvious to take, yet we did. As a game developer or artist, you’ve probably been considering whether to use Unity or Unreal.
Why Unity?
What propelled Unity to become the market leader in game engines? Why do so many video game developers and creators parade around wearing their Unity badges? Well, it appears that there are several causes.
Unity is free, which I would have highlighted as the first argument, but Unreal is also free in some ways. So, let’s disregard the cost. But first, let’s take a look at this lovely comment from Unity CEO John Riccitello, who said to GamesIndustry.biz: “There’s no royalties, no around.” Indeed…
Perhaps the most well-known advantage of utilising Unity is how simple it is to use. Unity is a popular choice among newcomers because of this. Its architecture is simple (basically just objects and components) and it uses C#, which is regarded as an easy programming language. Additionally, beginning in July 2020, all of Unity’s plans will come with the Bolt visual scripting tool for no additional charge, making Unity even simpler to use. Users of Unity can essentially avoid coding as much as possible. Unity may be the best option if you need to create a quick prototype for a pitch. It is also quick, which is another factor. Unity is renowned for its quick iteration cycles (iteration is everything, right? ), which are in part a result of its capacity to reduce code use.
Of course, there are also other factors. It boasts a great asset shop that will make you feel like a kid in a candy store, a larger community, and is really cross-platform (did someone mention porting?). The list goes on.
The fact that Unity is quite effective at creating 2D Outsource video game development is another factor that can propel it to the top of your selection. Several of my acquaintances who are the most devoted UE4 programmers confess as much.
Why Unreal? Graphics, People, Graphics!
Unreal is still regarded as the AAA game engine, representing teams that produce extremely gorgeous games (Gears 5, Days Gone, XCom-2, etc.), some of which are renowned for their photorealistic quality. Yes, the cost adjustment will attract many independent developers.
Unreal’s primary selling point is its visual appeal (lighting, shadows, textures, and so on). The key argument in favour of Unreal Engine is this. The entire gaming industry is moving toward photorealistic visuals, so it’s not a trivial thing. Sure, you can produce lovely images in Unity as well, but it might take you longer and you won’t necessarily achieve the same level of quality.
In terms of accessibility, Unreal’s Blueprints make it simple in terms of coding effort while Unity is more approachable (a beginner-friendly engine). Unreal is undoubtedly more complex, despite the fact that C++ isn’t the simplest programming language in the world and the architecture is different.
Although Unity has a larger community, a larger asset shop, and more documentation, other features like community, asset store, and documentation are still excellent. However, both engines are configured properly in that regard.
Unity vs Unreal: key differences
Graphics
They claim that artists tend to favour Unreal while programmers prefer Unity. I can’t say I agree because I’ve met several Unreal Outsource video game development devs, but I can certainly see why artists would choose it. You can quickly produce better images using Unreal Engine 4. Many visual features, such volumetric fog and post-processing, are built into Unreal Engine 4, however they are free components that must be installed separately in Unity.
The Unreal Engine’s tools, including the Material Editor, are practical and comparable to the node editors found in 3D modelling programmes like Maya and Blender. The API for the Unity Material Editor is still lacking in depth.
In comparison to Unreal, Unity does not lag far behind. Results of AAA calibre are still possible, although they might take more time.
Features
Both engines are extremely competitive when it comes to feature sets when comparing Unity and Unreal, but there are a few features I’d like to point out separately.
The first one is AI and how well Unreal Engine 4 uses it. UE4’s Behavior Tree system allows for some remarkable results. Using the Blackboard and Behavior Tree editors, you can easily construct complicated situations.
Another is 2D: Some developers advise choosing Unity if you want to create a 2D game. If you’re creating a 2D platform, sprite editors, animation tools, and other such resources greatly simplify your work. There is also the Paper2D plugin for Unreal to take into account.
There is also network support. Since Unity essentially lacks all of it, you must use third-party libraries. On the other side, replication is built into Unreal out of the box, and Blueprints and C++ can both be used to create multiplayer games.
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Target audience
The indie developer community loves Unity, as I previously indicated. Unreal, on the other side, is slowly but surely stealing market share from independent developers despite being recognised for powering AAA giants like the large studios. Not merely Unreal’s pricing change is to blame. The community is expanding quickly, and the Unreal Marketplace is full with assets you can use for prototyping as well as extra plugins (have a look at the Incredibuild plug-in). Independent companies are therefore busy, but what about AAA studios?
Along with the high-quality graphics, Unreal is far more scalable than Unity in the eyes of AAA studios. Large projects and large worlds, which are frequently features of AAA games, are a bottleneck for Unity.
The fact that UE4 is open-sourced is another factor that leads major developers to choose it. You can either fully deviate from the engine or contribute to it to speed up the development of things you want. In Star Wars Battlefront, Dice used Unreal Engine 3.5 to accomplish this.
Coding
This kind of visual code editor is available on both engines (Blueprint in Unreal Engine 4 and Prefab in Unity). But they’re distinct: The code for Unreal’s Blueprint is compiled by UE4 codegen to create a legitimate C++ class. The Prefab feature of Unity is merely a UI tool for connecting many scripts. Because blueprints are real chunks of code in UE4, you can create an entire game only from them. Bolt is a brand-new invention that is like to Prefab on steroids. Because of how well it worked out, Unity gave it away with all versions. However, it remains merely a UI tool that facilitates the assembly of components. In contrast to Unreal, where blueprints are legitimately created C++ classes.
The primary programming language for UE4 is C++ while for Unity it is C#. My impression is that C++ has a steeper learning curve than C#, and I feel that it is simpler to find an experienced Unity developer than a UE4 developer, perhaps because C# is a more accessible language.
Community
It is hardly surprising that both engines have sizable communities given their strong position in the game development industry. Let’s count the number of subscribers in each subreddit. In comparison to Unreal Engine, the Unity subreddit has 238K subscribers. I am aware that these figures don’t indicate much. Even yet, it’s still a fair comparison because there are twice as many members of the Unity community, which results in both more queries and, more crucially, more answers. Of course, there will be more knowledge as well.
Performance
Comparing engine performance is challenging. Numerous factors must be considered, including texture quality, item count, world size, and more. These are all dependent on developers. Benchmarks comparing C++ and C# won’t be useful because each engine has its own SDK. For example, Epic strongly recommends that developers adopt its memory management framework.
However, Unreal Engine optimises draw calls, and when a game world expands, this optimization is apparent: Unity raises its execution time continuously and proportionately, whereas Unreal Engine does not. Greater game scene complexity makes its superior performance obvious.
Compilation that is distributed is another matter. By integrating with Unreal Engine, Incredibuld dramatically accelerates code builds and shader creation. Internally, Epic uses it for its projects. Since there is no such interaction with Unity, UE4 is rather favoured.
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