Over the last decade, the gaming industry has gained a lot of popularity. More and more advanced games are being built for user’s entertainment, some of the top companies in this field are Sony Playstation, Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo etc. Building these games is a tough process and requires special game engines, two mostly used game engines are Unity and Cryengine. Both of these softwares are designed especially for easing the game development process. A large number of games have been developed using these game engines like Assassin’s Creed Unity, Far Cry, Crysis etc. so we will compare these two game engines in detail.
Unity is a software mainly used for the development of video games for computer and mobile platforms. It is also used in the field of Augmented and virtual reality. Unity was developed by Unity Technologies in 2005. It is a cross-platform game engine. It was developed only for OS X but now it can be used on different platforms like Windows, Mac, etc. Unity is free of cost and is open to all. It is easy to use so it is used by most game developers for making games and applications. It is written in C++ and C#. It is used to create 2D and 3D games.
Advantages of Unity
- It is a cross-platform game development engine means games can be used on multiple platforms.
- It is best for indie game developers as its personal licence is free.
- A large number of plugins are available to enhance its capabilities.
- It has its own asset store from which one can download pre-built gaming assets.
Disadvantages of Unity
- Rendering of unity is slower as compared to the unreal engine.
- Unity is not suitable for AAA games.
- Importing templates from other platforms is not allowed so everything needs to be built from scratch.
Cryengine is computer software which is used for making different types of games. It is developed by Crytech using C++, C# and Lua programming languages. It was first released in 2002 and its stable version was released in 2020. It can be run on different platforms like Windows, MacOS, Linux etc. It is used by many organisations for making commercial games, it is popular due to its easy-to-use interface.
Advantages of Cryengine
- It is easy to use and requires only basic programming knowledge.
- It supports VR functionalities.
- It allows integrations with many software like blender, Maya etc
- It is suitable for AAA games.
Disadvantages of Cryengine
- It requires heavy processors to run the software smoothly.
- It requires a graphic card with the latest driver.
Following is a table of differences between Unity and Cryengine:
|
Unity |
CryEngine |
|
| 1. | It can be defined as an advanced game development software to make 2D and 3D games. | It can be defined as a game engine which is used to make different types of video games. |
| 2. | It was developed by Unity Technologies. | It was developed by Crytek. |
| 3. | Unity provides a personal licence for free and a pro licence for $1800 per year i.e. $150 per month. | It is available at $9.90 per month subscription. |
| 4. | It has a market share of 11%. | It has a market share of around 5%. |
| 5. | It is built using C# and C++ programming languages. | It is built using C# and C++ and Lua programming languages. |
| 6. | It does not have open-source code. | Its open-source code is available on GitHub. |
| 7. | It has a large community which consists of around 210K members. | It has a smaller community as compared to Unity. |
| 8. | Unity is available for Windows and Mac both. | It is available for Windows operating systems only. |