Unreal Engine Review: Pros, Cons, and Suitability

A game engine was developed by Epic Games engine which is today acknowledged as The Unreal Engine. It was first displayed in 1998 first-person shooter game Unreal. Although it was developed majorly for first-person shooters, it has been effectively used in a diversity of other genres, including stealth, fighting games, MMORPGs, and other RPGs. The codes are written in C++, the Unreal Engine comprises of a high amount of portability and is also used by many game developers nowadays.  Unreal Engine has received several awards and has even won Guinness World Records award for "most successful video game engine in the year 2014. So let's us dig into the Unreal Engine Review without much ado.

What is an Unreal Engine?

Unreal Engine 4 is an absolute group of game development tools which are made for anyone working with real-time technology. Starting from enterprise applications and cinematic experiences to high-quality games across PC, console, mobile, Virtual and Augmented Reality, Unreal Engine 4 gives you the whole thing you need to start, ship, grow and stand out from the mass.

A world-class toolset and easy to get to workflows allow developers to rapidly iterate on ideas and see instantaneous results without having a touch at the line of code, while full foundation code right of entry gives everyone in the Unreal Engine 4 society the freedom to adjust and enlarge engine features.

The current release of this game is Unreal Engine 4 which is designed for Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, SteamOS, HTML5, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Magic Leap One, and virtual reality (SteamVR/HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, Google Daydream, OSVR and Samsung Gear VR.

 In the list of awards Unreal Engine has won eight Game Developer Magazine Front Line Awards for Best Game Engine (2004, 2005, 2006,  2007,  2009,  2010, 2011, 2012^]), a place in the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame, and six Develop Industry Excellence Awards for Best Engine (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016,  2017). It has also got  GamesRadar's E3 2012 Important Stuff Awards for "Best Taste of Next-Gen", IGN's Best of E3 2012 for "Coolest Tech", Game Informer's Best of E3 2012 Awards for "Best Tech", and was declared "Best Engine" in Develop 100: The Tech List 2014.

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Pros of Unreal Engine

• Unreal Engine has better characteristics for the different types of graphics. It is better than other games actually. Thus this engine is known for the creation of high-tech Triple-A game in which the primary role played by the achievement of the best class.

• There are schemes like the blocks in the unreal engine so that even the artists without negligible knowledge will be able to use the engine in the ground of programming. Also, this function is appropriate for prototyping. But the main work will still have to use C ++ for the same.

• For a wide variety of situations, Unreal Engine has more tools and functionality, which is not present in other games with a similar type. The Unreal Engine has visual editors then other games.

• Due to different functions rendering technology is more efficient and faster than other games. This game engine actually runs quite fast.

• For the optimization of the game, this is the best tool.

• The Unreal Engine is signified by a visual debugging, through which you can manage the expansion process and the quantity of time spent on it.

• If you have a team of specialized people then this game engine is good for you.

• Making changes in the game is quite easy, you just need to have knowledge about C++.

Cons of Unreal Engine

• For the working of Unreal Engine, you need a licensed copy for working and even have to pay the five percent tax after your game will be profitable.

• For creating simple games, unreal engine is not suitable. Even for the short-term tasks, the unreal engine cannot be used. For the projects which have a long life, unreal engine is best for them but the cost of such job will be much senior to another source.

• For a single person, this game is not suitable.

• Carefully choose the team that is for dealing there should be a proper selection process keeping all the essentials in mind and experts in Unreal Engine are much less.

Also Read: The Master Guide to Game Development

The Previous Versions

UNREAL ENGINE 3 (UE3)

UE3 was the leading engine which was there in the previous generation. For new projects, UE4 is supported.

UNREAL DEVELOPER KIT (UDK)

The free edition of Unreal Engine 3 is Unreal Development Kit. Now, this system doesn’t support UDK and recommend beginning new projects for free by making use of UE4, which offers you all the latest engine features as well as full source code access.

The New versions

Unreal Engine 4.19 is available. Whether you want to create games, linear media, architectural visualizations or product designs, Unreal Engine 4.19 allows you to step inside the artistic process and know precisely what the complete product will look like every step of the way. There are certain new features which are available for rendering, lighting, cinematic and augmented reality workflow etc.

The system requirement for developing with UE4, it is said that a desktop or  PC with Windows 7 64-bit or a Mac with Mac OS X 10.9.2 or later, 8 GB RAM and a quad-core Intel or AMD processor, and a DX11 friendly video card. UE4 will run on desktops and laptops below these recommendations, but presentation may be restricted.

Products which can be released with Unreal Engine 4

Any product which is permitted by law, with the exemption of gambling applications and certain safety-critical control systems explained in the EULA can be released. Even games, demos, VR projects, architectural showcases, trailers, films, and more could be released.

The only parts of the Unreal Engine you cannot release to the general public are the basic code and tools or alterations to them; these mechanisms may only be dispersed to other licensees with the right of entry to the same version of the Unreal Engine.

Unreal Script

UnrealScript (often shortened to UScript) is Unreal Engine's inhabitant scripting language which is made in use for authoring game code and gameplay events before the release of Unreal Engine 4. For simple and high-level game programming the language was designed. The UnrealScript interpreter was planned by Tim Sweeney, who also made an earlier game scripting language, ZZT-oop.

Just like Java, Unreal Script is object-oriented without multiple inheritances (classes all inherit from a common Object class), and classes are clear in individual files named for the class they define. Unlike Java, Unreal Script does not consist of object wrappers for prehistoric types. Interfaces are only supported in Unreal Engine generation 3 and a few Unreal Engine 2 games. Unreal Script supports operator overloading, but method overloading is not supported, except for optional parameters.

About this Sweeney, speaking to Gamasutra at Game Developers Conference (GDC) in 2012, Epic announced that Unreal Script was being detached from Unreal Engine 4 in favor of C++. Visual scripting would be sustained by the Blueprints Visual Scripting system, a substitute for the earlier Kismet visual scripting system.

One of the major moments in Unreal Engine 4's development was, we had a series of debates about UnrealScript – the scripting language I'd built that we'd carried through three generations. And what we needed to do to make it competitive in the future. And we kept going through bigger and bigger feature lists of what we needed to do to upgrade it, and who could possibly do the work, and it was getting really, really unwieldy. And there was this massive meeting to try and sort it out, and try to cut things and decide what to keep, and plan and...there was this point where I looked at that and said 'you know, everything you're proposing to add to UnrealScript is already in C++. Why don't we just kill UnrealScript and move to pure C++? You know, maximum performance and maximum debuggability. It gives us all these advantages.

Also Read: Tips for a Successful Game Development

Unreal Engine EULA (End User License Agreement)

The Unreal Engine 4 EULA is basically a legal document which you agree to when you sign up for the Unreal Engine. It controls your use of the Unreal Engine and also describes your rights and obligations when you build games or other products using the engine.  For the knowledge, you can download the EULA from which is present in a PDF format.  The official version of the EULA is there in English only, but presently a version is there in the Japanese language too. Even EULA is present in Korean language and EULA is there in the Chinese language too.

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