Kajenx 2017-01-23 00:57:18 (Updated 2017-01-23 02:44:13)

I was using Unity for a long while and I had to spend a lot of time getting even simple things to work. I was really frustrated one night, so I downloaded Unreal hoping for something that wouldn't be such a chore. The difference is really staggering - at least it was to me. Unity doesn't even seem like an "engine" to me anymore. It just doesn't have any tools. It has a few simple little things, like the terrain tool and the tree maker, that are just kinda broken and limited, and beyond that...nothing. The terrain tool seems like a useless toy next to Unreal's landscape system. Unity is a basic 3D platform to build your game on. Unreal has some really amazing TOOLS that they've built. The way that the materials and the procedural mesh generation are built into each other and the way their landscape system works is really, really good. It also comes with character controllers that work pretty well right out of the box.

The thing for me is that I don't love to code. I can do it and I'm pretty good at it, but I don't really like it. I don't want to make all my own tools from scratch. I've already done that too many times and the novelty has long worn off. Unreal let's you just make a game. When you're making code, it's to make stuff happen in your game, not to make a tool to allow you to build the game.

All that said, there are two things I don't like about Unreal. The first one is that you can either use C++ or their node-based Blueprint editor. It's kind of like no middle ground. I opted for Blueprints and I don't hate them, but I'd prefer a nice scripting language instead. Overall this has become a non-issue for me, though. The second thing that actually made me a bit flabbergasted is that they don't have standard controller support in unreal. They use xinput, which means the game will only work for xbox controllers or new controllers that use xinput. There are emulators and such, but I see it as a possible future headache I'll have to deal with when people tell me their controllers aren't working. This is part of a theme I've run into with Unreal, though. They are designing the engine to make games for middleware+, so it's catering to the newest and best, not the widest possible. Though, they can also target phones and such, so that doesn't necessarily mean it won't run on low end machines if you're careful with the design.

EDIT: TBH, I don't know that unreal has better graphics over Unity. Both engines can make beautiful graphics. It's just that Unreal makes everything so easy to do that the results are just that much better.

Kajenx 2017-01-24 17:56:04

Maybe. I'm not sure about steam, TBH. It seems like they take a lot of your money.