Unity vs Unreal Engine

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 Unreal engine. 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, Harold Halibut, GooBall 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 it’s personal licence is free.
• A large number of plugins are available to enhance its capabilities.
• It has its own asset store from where 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.

Unreal Engine is computer software made with the purpose of game development so it is a game engine. The development credit for this software goes to Epic Games and it was first launched in 1998. Its author is Tim Sweeney. It is capable of making 2D and 3D games. It is available for different operating systems like Windows, macOS, etc. It is easy to use and is capable of making complex games.

Advantages of Unreal Engine

• It has an easy interface with which game development can be easily started.
• It has a node feature which allows game development without writing codes.
• It comes with impeccable graphic quality.
• It has better rendering technology which is quite faster than other game engines.
• It comes with pre-built game levels which gives an initial start to the game developers.

Disadvantages of Unreal Engines

• It charges 5% royalty, once your published game earns $1 million.
• It provides fewer plugins than that of Unity.
• It needs a high processor along with a dedicated graphic card and memory.

Following is a table of differences between Unity and Unreal Engine:

	Unity	Unreal Engine
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 Epic Games.
3.	Unity provides a personal licence for free and pro licence for $1800 per year i.e. $150 per month.	It is free to use but a 5% royalty is charged when your game earns $1 million.
4.	Rendering in this software is a bit slower.	It allows faster rendering as compared to Unity.
5.	It does not have open-source code.	It is an open-source game engine.
6.	It has a market share of 11%.	It has a market share of 23%.
7.	It is built using C# and C++ programming languages.	It is built using C++ and Blueprint programming languages
8.	It has a large community which consists of around 210K members.	It has a smaller community as compared to Unity.