What Engine Should We Use?

Hello team,

So we've been using Unity, but a recent debate has begun about a potential switch to Unreal 4. We need to make a decision as a team about this, but I wanted to use the forum to allow everyone to state their opinion -- the pros and cons of each engine -- and then once we have had a chance to absorb that information, we will simply do a vote and the winning engine will be the one that we use.

As a writer, I don't really use either engine. I have found a free dialogue system program for Unreal 4, so that's exciting to me. There are plenty of dialogue systems out there, they average $50 so if we stick with Unity and decide to use the dialogue system -- which I am heavily leaning towards -- we will have that shared team cost.

So that's my 2 cents about which engine I would prefer. But, I will not be working within the engine, and the thoughts and opinions of the programming and art team members is essential for this conversation. So, everyone, please participate.

Thanks,
Alan

Personally I'd use Unreal. Not just because I am more familiar with it, although that does make up about 80% of my reasoning, but there is support in the form of the Unreal Marketplace. I am unsure if Unity has a store or market with user submitted content, but there is so much in the Marketplace made by users everyday that we can instantly add to our game. Recently I purchased blueprints on how to make Turn-based strategy games and a card game generator. The store isn't limited to blueprints though as you can also purchase sound effects, UI designs and more!

Yes, Unity has an amazingly large store full of user created content, including a ton of pretty good free content. I'm perfectly fine with either Unreal or Unity. I'll need to do some studying on C++, but I'm not foreseeing that being too much of an issue since I can always fall back on Blueprints if need be. I'd rather not, but the option is there

I have worked in both Unity and Unreal so I'll make a list of things that would be beneficial for us from each engine:

Unity does have a much larger asset store than Unreal, however that is good and bad as there are also more bad assets. But if you know what you're looking for, Unity's store is superior (especially since they have more free assets). However, Unreal's asset store is gaining momentum and is a good place for a lot of what we need.

Graphically speaking, an Unreal game is prettier than an Unity game by default. But both have their trademark look and both you can change with some work added in. But given face value of the appearances, I believe Unreal will make the art style we are going for stand out more than Unity would.

Unity's editor is more user friendly, hands down. Things just seem to flow better. Once you get used to Unreal's interface, it becomes second nature. This difficulty in Unreal's editor is due in part to how powerful the engine is. There's a lot to look at and a lot that you can change (fairly easily even compared to Unity).

Blueprints is a tool that I've slowly grown to appreciate at a certain level. Beginning with Unreal, I hated Blueprints because I am a coder but I see the benefits of it being useful for prototyping quickly and programming little things easily. It's also useful for giving designers and other non-programmers a way to easily change things without needing too much knowledge of C++ (if any). UI elements? BP. Trap damage? BP. Particles? BP. Networking? BP.

Speaking of networking; since our game is planned to have online compatibility whether through Steam or directly through our own server, Epic has made it easier to establish and more powerful than Unity's UNet. I've done a little in both and it was easier to set up a connection in Unreal than Unity despite being relatively new to Unreal and Blueprints.

Finally, the scripting languages of Unity and Unreal are C# and C++, respectively. C# has the benefit of automatic memory management while C++ we have to manage that more closely (though, the proper use of pointers helps to manage this). Otherwise, C++ is a little bit of a stronger language than C#. Also, as a bonus for CP and I, lots of AAA studios use C++ so it's a good tool to have.

At this point in time, I think that Unity would be faster and easier for us to program in due to the familiarity that CP and I have with it. However, for the betterment of the game, I think Unreal will provide a better and more polished product if we are given the time to learn it better than we do now.

I’m not really that familiar with Unreal and I haven’t used any of the two engines but I saw what Unity can do in one of the tutorials and online lessons I had viewed way back. And some people I know uses Unity more than Unreal. Our university’s exploring VR and they are using Unity as well.

I am more than happy to work on Unreal, i have done some things in the engine in terms of textures and model import. That been said i am okay with using Unity as well. I can just look up things i forget to do in the both engine. But i do believe in terms of performance and looks i would like to go with UE4, it is a powerful engine

From the experiences of those I know who have used Unity, Unity might be more user friendly in terms of the programming side of things. Plus, it can do most of what UE4 can do.