What is Unreal engine
If you are a video game enthusiast, you have probably heard of Unreal Engine. Your favourite game might have been created using that engine. What you might not know is that this engine can also be used to create non-video game-related content.
Unreal Engine can be used for many other things, including:
- 3d Cinematics
- video editing
- Simulations
Unreal Engine, with its regular updates, vibrant indie game community, and abundant documentation, is the first choice for video game development.
Many famous games were made using this engine. Here are a few games that were made with Unreal Engine:
Gears of War games:
Gears of war is a revolutionary series of 3rd person shooter action games. Its first game started on the Xbox 360 and had many other iterations on PC, Xbox one and XBOX series X/S.
Batman Arkham series game:
Unreal Engine was used to create the next iteration of the Dark Knight games. Although that game series was made by many studios in North America and the UK, they all used the Unreal Engine.
10 games were made for that series. They captivated a growing audience with their huge open-world levels in Arkham City, interesting dialogues, and cool fighting animations.
Final fantasy VII remake:
The famous Japanese game was remade in 2020 with Unreal Engine 4. Final Fantasy VII Remake became one of the fastest-selling PlayStation 4 games, selling more than 3.5 million copies within three days and over five million by August 2020. Another version with better graphics was made for the PlayStation 5.
Kingdom hearts III:
Like Final Fantasy VII, this Japanese franchise was made using Unreal Engine. It is also the same studio that made Final Fantasy VII. We can notice that more and more Japanese studios are willing to use Unreal Engine for their games. In the past decades, Japanese studios have mainly used their own game engine.
Kingdom Hearts is another fascinating real-time strategy game. The first game was launched on PlayStation 2, and it was a huge success.
Unreal franchise
Unreal is certainly the most popular game franchise made in Unreal Engine. The first game in the franchise was actually made by the programmers who coded Unreal Engine. Inspired by Doom and Quake, the game pushed the boundaries of realism thanks to the original Unreal Engine.
Mass effect franchise
Mass Effect is a Canadian game franchise which took over the world back in 2007 on Xbox 360. The game was revolutionary for its RPG-shooter gameplay, dynamic dialogues and excellent graphic.
Advantages of using unreal engine
(H1 title in the center)
Unreal Engine offers many advantages. Whether you are a beginner, intermediate, or advanced user, Unreal offers you resources to create the project of your dreams.
Blueprint and C++
You do not have to be a programmer in order to create a video game or a 3D project. Unreal has a set of tools called blueprints that can allow you to code any aspect of your game by connecting nodes between each other and setting up parameters.
In order to create a game or a 3D product, you no longer need to manually code variables, methods, and classes. You can represent all those coding concepts by connecting parameters with nodes. You can compile those blueprints in a few seconds and press play to test your concepts!
Thousands of prefabricated blueprints can be found on the Epic Marketplace and elsewhere. You can then modify them to suit the needs of your projects.
For intermediate and advanced programmers, Unreal Engine still offers the traditional object-oriented programming paradigm. The engine allows you to use Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, or any other compiler to code your game.
Tutorials and courses
The Unreal Engine community is diverse and competent. Thousands of free tutorials can be found on YouTube and the internet. Many online schools also offer advanced Unreal Engine courses. There are Facebook groups with more than 100,000 followers where you can showcase your projects, ask questions, and find collaborators.
Marketplace
The Unreal Engine store is called the "epic marketplace." It has a vast array of products that you can use in your video games, including:
- Environments
blueprints and C++ code
- Characters
- Soundtracks
Materials and tutorials
- 3D props
- plugins
The marketplace is directly available inside the engine on your desktop. You can also buy the assets from the web browser. With one click, the Unreal Engine can install the assets you bought inside your project. You can immediately use them after you buy them.
The marketplace has a huge array of assets that you can use for different themes for your project, like horror, low poly, shooters, rpg, etc. Before you buy an asset, you can read the reviews and comments of the buyer of that asset. Most assets have a clear description, and they also have links to videos displaying them.
If you have a great idea for a video game or a project, chances are that everything you need can be found on the marketplace!
Workflow
Unreal Engine offers a great workflow experience with the other software you need to create your 3D products. Software like Blender, Substance, and Make Humans have add-ons and plugins that allow you to export your assets from their platforms to Unreal Engine seemingly without any problems.
Improvements
The engine is always improving. When bugs or problems are found by users, they are immediately fixed by the Epic team. The engine is constantly updated, and the updates bring in new functionalities. Over the years, the interface of the engine has become much more simple and convivial.
Accessibility
The engine is totally free, and there are no hidden fees. You can download the engine and start using it for your projects. Epic only starts to take 5% of your revenues when your project has grossed more than 1 million USD. Projects below 1 million USD do not have to pay anything to Epic.
Compatibility
Unreal allows you to port your 3D projects to all the recent gaming consoles. The engine also supports your mobile projects on IOS and Android. Great efforts were also made to improve the portability to Linux and MAC.
