Battle up! Between Unity & Unreal Engine

It has only been a few years since the Unity & Unreal game engines have been the hottest names in the game development industry. In the fast-changing world of software development, they are eons ahead of their competition.

There have been recent changes that have significantly impacted both these game engines. Because of the overwhelming interest businesses and studios have shown in developing applications using Unity or Unreal, these changes have a significant impact on the future of these engines. 

As a beginner, the first and foremost thing you should know is that Unity and Unreal Engine are the two most popular software development gaming engines available today. 

Though both began as tools for game development, they have grown into much broader and better platforms. While comparing Unity with Unreal is almost self-evident, we still took the bait. As a game developer or artist, you have probably debated whether to use Unity or Unreal and might have experienced this debate will never end. 

Let us take a closer look at the changes and where we are now.

Unity  

• Unity-based mobile games account for 71% of the top 1000 titles on the market.
• Over 2.7 billion people make up the user base (Developers + Users).
• Over 65K assets are available in the Asset Store.
• In 2020, revenue climbed by 43 percent.
• The company’s market capitalization is around $27.8 billion.

Unreal Engine

• Over two million developers use the Unreal game engine
• Over 16K assets are available on the marketplace.
• The developer community has grown to almost 7 million members.
• Epic Games’ (parent company) market valuation is around $17 billion, based on an estimated 13 percent market share.

As per recent stats, both these gaming engines are at the forefront. Unity holds a 48% market share, whereas Unreal Engine confines 13% of the market share, making them equally formidable competitors.

Heads-Up comparison 

• Unreal Engine is an open-source game engine, While Unity is not an open source game engine.
• Unreal Engine was first launched in 1998, whereas Unity was announced and released in 2005.
• Unreal Engine is written in C++, while Unity is in C#. 
• Community: Both engines have a sizable active user base.Both Unity and Unreal Engine include asset markets where you can buy pre-made 3D models, objects, environments, and so on, and it has a larger client base and hence user base.
• Both have sturdy and extensive documentation that explains their tools and functions. However, Unity Courses come in a variety of formats directing careers in 3D Game Development.
• Users can obtain mods such as textures and props through the Asset Store. In comparison to other games, Unity has a large number of mods.

Unity began as a game engine and continues to be one. Whereas, Unreal started as a game engine and is now also being used in virtual reality. The Mandalorian tv show’s set was designed and filmed using Unreal Engine. It bills itself as the “Most Advanced Real-Time 3D Creation Tools,” rather than a recreation engine. The capabilities of Unreal Engine 5 are more towards encouraging innovation. Unity has always been a gaming engine.

Lumen is a technology that will allow developers to create fully dynamic lighting in real-time, akin to the images generated by high-end computers for high-quality animation and film production. Lumen will also save a significant amount of real-time spent on the light adjustment and iteration. Game app creators will no longer have to construct lightmaps by hand or wait for lightmap bakes to finish, as they do with current game engines. Instead, artists will be able to place a light source with the engine and move it about inside the Unreal Editor to see how the lighting would look when the game is played on a console, in real-time.

Nanite is UE 5’s most distinctive feature, allowing game creators to scale in-game art assets automatically and dramatically. With Nanite’s virtualized micro polygon geometry, artists can create as many geometric elements as their imagination allows. Nanite will be a game-changer since it will permit developers to have as many objects as they want in a scene, which is now impossible with current game engines.

Nanite and Lumen are ground-breaking technologies for creating dynamic lighting and high-poly assets that aren’t overly slow, labor-intensive, or expensive. Niagara VFX will be one of the new elements of UE5, allowing particles to communicate with one another to produce realistic effects (remember the character moving on water and insects flocking in the demo video). Epic encourages creators to think of games as holistic products that can be played on smartphones as well as high-end platforms with UE5. Well, we will have to wait and see how matters turn out after the release of UE5, but we can count on it to make creating next-gen games a lot easier. Epic Games has released a new tool to motivate developers to use UE5 even more.

Is Unreal more difficult than Unity?

Both new developers and businesses looking for developers have similar concerns. There should be no immediate concerns about hiring specialists or forecasting their productivity. The developer market for Unity and Unreal Engine (Unreal) is large, with many people working independently in freelance or outsourcing environments.

The current versions of the engines are well-optimized, so most competent specialists should be able to utilize them fully.

Whatever platform you use, there will be a significant level of difficulty and you need to pay some attention to learn. Many game developers believe that Unity is much easier to get started with because C# is a more streamlined and understandable language.

Conclusion:

The possibilities with these two powerful gaming engines are numerous. What is your personal goal as a game designer? Are you looking for 3D platformers, first-person shooters, or role-playing games? How about Braid, a puzzle game? Do you want to create the next big craze like Temple Run? Everything is dependent on the developer’s intention, vision, and goals. Your game engine will determine whether your vision is more ‘Clash of Clans’ or ‘Assassin’s Creed.’