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A conflict as old and heavily debated like the console wars or console vs PC, we have the Unity vs Unreal Engine debate. To get a good grasp on this discussion and what each engine offers you, we brought in two of our best! One Lead Unreal Engine developer and one Lead Unity Developer, hot off projects themselves in their respective engines. They were kind enough to lend their expertize and industry knowledge to this debate and to help you see the strengths of each engine and what they can do for your game development project. Let’s get into it!
We first asked both Lead Developers how much experience they had with their opposite’s engine! Just to see if both would give a fair and equal opinion during this rigorous engagement.
Unreal Engine (UE) Developer: I actually came from Unity to Unreal Engine so my career is actually divided 50/50 between Unity and Unreal Engine. They’re both great engines that each excel in different aspects. I will say there are some things I miss from Unity. Their 2D tooling is amazing, sprite deformation, and tilemaps are all great examples of something lacking in Unreal. When it comes to any 2D games, I’d lean into Unity and maybe some lower-spec 3D mobile games.
Unity Developer: I have a few months experience with Unreal Engine and I like to play around with it after I learned some of it for a course. I like to try conduct tests on Unity, creating my retro gaming passions on it. I decided to give Unreal Engine the same concept and see what it could do. I have to say it’s a powerful engine and it was almost comical to see it handling simple things like sprite animations and simple UI. The experience was really interesting, it has some great UI tools and the Blueprint programming approach was very helpful.
Unreal Engine really boasts a modern technology set. It helps in reducing production time when creating ambitious 3D games. If you’re aiming for stunning visuals, Unreal Engine 5 is your go to. Virtualized geometry is a powerful system that enables artists to focus on the visuals and let the engine take care of a lot of the optimization. Global illumination is incredible for high-end computers and the latest consoles where we’re seeing more realistic and immersive scenes. The level streaming system as well is fantastic for large worlds and allowing multiple team members to work in parallel on the same game environment.
UE supports multi-platform games by default and has great built-in features for all of the common game elements like behavior trees for NPC AI development, a customizable networking layer integrated into the engine’s core, and a versatile animation system that integrates into their visual scripting system. The performance cost is high so it might struggle for lower-end devices like mobile, but it’s unparalleled in delivering quality.
As my colleague mentioned before, Unity is fantastic for creating 2D games. It’s something that Unreal Engine isn’t really designed for. Unity also comes with a range of great built-in tools, it’s got a huge community in support, and a vast Asset Store. In terms of the 2D gaming space it’s the clear winner. Where it doesn’t compete with UE for the best of the best visuals, we see Unity filling the niche of pure versatility. iPhone, Android, WebGL, XR, VR, consoles, PC, it’s able to do everything and anything.
It’s no pushover in the 3D space either, it can and does perform well competitively with UE. One of the engine’s strongest points is its ability to deploy on multiple platforms without major changes to the core game. No matter the setup or platform, Unity can do it. And, it can run on less powerful devices with a different render pipeline approach, meaning you don’t sacrifice too much quality for a significantly larger audience.
This is only the beginning of the debate, we have much more to come! Keep an eye on our socials for the second and final installment of the great battle between Unity and Unreal Engine.
If you’d like to leverage our game development expertize, get in touch with us today! Our Unity Game Development service and Unreal Engine Game Development service are both built on industry-leading expertize and comprehensive communication. Contact our team today and let’s create magic!
