Game Engine reviews by real, verified users. Find unbiased ratings on user satisfaction, features, and price based on the most reviews available anywhere.
Best Game Engine Software
Game engines provide game developers a framework for creating a video game without the need to create all systems, such as the physics, graphics, and AI, from scratch. Game engines help developers save time and resources by removing the need to program and integrate game-supporting systems together, so developers can focus on creating the meat of the game itself. Game development teams use game engines to support them while they program a video game, and the decision of which game engine to use is usually the first step towards actually creating a game. Similar to a software suite, game engines contain many different internal systems such as a physics engine, audio engine, rendering engine, AI, animation, and more. Often, there are plugins or APIs available to customize a game engine, and some game engines come with asset libraries to make it even easier to create a game.
To qualify for inclusion in the game engine category, a product must:
Top 10 Game Engine Software
- Unity
- Unreal Engine
- ARKit
- Amazon Lumberyard
- Blender
- CryEngine
- GameMaker
- Kivy
- Construct
- RPG Maker VX Ace
Unity is a game development platform to created both 3D and 2D games, experiences, models and designs. Both indie games and businesses can utilize the popular platform. .
Founded in 1991, Epic Games is the creator of the Unreal, Gears of War and Infinity Blade series of games. Today Epic is building Paragon, Fortnite, SPYJiNX, and the new Unreal Tournament. Epic's Unreal Engine technology is used by teams of all sizes to ship visually stunning, high-quality games and experiences across PC, console, VR and mobile platforms. Developers also choose Unreal Engine for visualization, design, linear entertainment and simulation. Follow @UnrealEngine on Twitter and downl
iOS 11 introduces ARKit, a new framework that allows you to easily create unparalleled augmented reality experiences for iPhone and iPad. By blending digital objects and information with the environment around you, ARKit takes apps beyond the screen, freeing them to interact with the real world in entirely new ways.
Amazon Lumberyard is a free AAA game engine deeply integrated with AWS and Twitch, with full source.
Blender is an open source 3D creation suite that supports the 3D pipeline, modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, and motion tracking, video editing, and game creation.
With CRYENGINE, we have a simple goal: to create the most powerful game engine in the industry, and to give creators all across the globe the tools to harness this power to create world-class gaming experiences, no matter their budget or team size. 5% royalties, full source code. Suitable for developing on all platforms, including a strong affinity & performance boost for VR. Check our the full-feature catalogue, here: https://www.cryengine.com/features
GameMaker allows you to create cross platform games and functional prototypes with managed workflow, quality, multi format export, performance and more.
Kivy is an open source, cross platform Python library the development of application that make use of user interfaces such as multi-touch apps.
Construct 3 is a 2D game engine that allows you to bring your ideas to life from the comfort of your internet browser. Our powerful event sheet view empowers you to create and modify your creations. It's fast. It's easy. Bring your ideas into reality. Construct's been designed to allow you to build the game you've always wanted to make. Try our free edition now at https://editor.construct.net/
RPG Maker VX Ace provides you the tools you need to make the game you want with the following features, an enhanced map editor, a character database, event options, and default resources including built in character generator.
Godot is an open source MIT licensed multi-platform 2D and 3D game engine that provides common tools so you can focus on making your game.
Cocos2d is an open-source framework for building cross-platform 2D games with Xcode and Objective-C.
PlayCanvas is an open source cloud hosted collaborative 3D platform for building video games that allows per-pixel lighting, shadows and post effects, rigid bodies, triggers, vehicles, and joints, and audio, input, animation, and entity system.
Stencyl provides tools to create games for mobile, web and desktop without code.
Buildbox is a codeless game development platform that empowers customers to make a video games.
The Easiest Way to Build, Deploy and Scale Game Backends
jMonkeyEngine is an open source game engine for Java game developers to create 3D games using modern technology.
UNIGINE is a real-time 3D visualization platform focused on the enterprise sector with more than 200 B2B customers worldwide. It is used in professional simulation & training industry (maritime, ground, air, space, computer vision). UNIGINE technologies are also used in industrial digital twins, BIM, GIS and various VR projects.
Cocos2d-x is an open-source game engine that helps its users develop their own mobile games.
Core3D is a lightweight framework for developing 3D visualization and simulation applications programmed in objective-C.
Eclipse Engine is a data driven, next gen. RPG engine for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and the PC.
GamePlay3d is an open-source, cross-platform, 2D and 3D game framework aimed towards indie game developers who are creating desktop and mobile games.
HeroEngine is the only all-in-one development platform for making & operating online games. HeroEngine offers the only real time collaborative game engine where developers from anywhere in the world can work together in real time. HeroCloud, the HeroEngine cloud based service offers everything from middleware to full service server and network already built in and included in your yearly subscription.
Cross-platform game development solution.
Ren'Py is a visual novel engine that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers and mobile devices that can be used as both visual novels and life simulation games.
Starling Framework is an open source cross platform ActionScript library for Adobe Flash that recreates Flash's display list architecture on GPU that runs in the browser and on all mobile platforms.
Turbulenz is an open source HTML5 game engine for developing games under the MIT license that allows you to create, test and monetise your game.
Wire3D is a multi-platform 3D engine written in C++ featuring platform independent rendering, scene graph generation, vector, matrix, quaternion lib, importer, and more.
ZGameEditor is a tool for creating small arcade style games, demos, and screensavers that is integrated with a developer environment where you can build, preview, and test your game.
4A Engine is a graphics middleware engine that was created for game creation on multiple consoles and high-end PCs.
Learn More About Game Engine Software
What is Game Engine Software?
Game engine software provides game developers with the platform they need to build video games. Developers benefit from game engine software’s prebuilt systems, tools, and asset libraries, allowing teams to focus on game design. Games are built on the foundation of game engines. For many developers, the use of game engine software instead of in-house software saves them significant time and resources. The task of creating a custom game engine is monumental, and requires a great deal of effort that could otherwise be spent on game development. Game engine software eliminates this effort, and organizes the development workflow in a standardized environment. With game engine software, developers can work within one centralized hub to create, tweak, and manage their games.
Most game engine software gives developers and studios a full suite of game creation tools, including internal audio engine software and physics engine software. While most game engine software requires source code, some game engine software offers low-code or no-code creation platforms.
Key Benefits of Game Engine Software
- Eases development workload
- Saves time
- Organizes workflow
- Standardizes development environment
Why Use Game Engine Software?
Prebuilt framework — Crafting a game engine from scratch is a monumental task, even for large game studios. Game engine software’s prebuilt framework and tool kits save developers time and let them focus on game content.
Standardized development — Using game engine software means that developers can rely on community knowledge about a standard build environment. This isn’t the case with custom built solutions.
Workflow organization — Developers using game engine software benefit from the ability to work in one centralized hub. Without game engine software, workflows are prone to messy misorganization. Game development becomes faster and more efficient when developers are able to keep all of their tools in the same place.
Asset use — Developers, especially those on smaller teams, can save effort by using prebuilt assets instead of building those assets themselves. Pulling from the asset libraries offered by game engine software give developers more time to work on game mechanics as opposed to asset creation.
Who Uses Game Engine Software?
Solo game developers — Game developers working on their own to create games rely heavily on game engine software. Without game engine software, individual game developers face the monumental task of creating their own game engine from scratch - a task that even well-funded, larger development studios find challenging.
Small game development teams — Like solo game developers, small development teams usually lack the time and resources to build a custom game engine. Game engine software not only saves these teams time and effort, but also facilitates better team collaboration by standardizing the development environment.
Large game development studios — While large game development teams often have access to the funding and resources required to build an in-house game engine, most of the time it’s more cost effective to use game engine software. Even the biggest blockbuster games from established development teams usually use game engine software rather than go to the trouble of developing a custom engine.
Game Engine Software Features
Top-notch visuals — With game engine software, developers can craft games with high-quality graphics and VFX without creating them from scratch. Game engine software’s rendering capabilities streamline the visual components of game development.
Asset libraries — Most game engine software gives developers access to prebuilt assets for their games. Textures, A.I. systems, shaders, and more can be accessed and implemented quickly, saving development time and allowing game developers to focus on mechanics as opposed to asset creation.
Advanced creation tools — Game engines give developers a full suite of tools. Developers are empowered to create cutscenes, animations, 3D models, and more to craft a game that fits their creative vision. The robust capabilities of game engine software facilitate organized development by limiting the need for developers to do work outside of the game engine environment.
