Tierlisting the BEST (and worst) GAME ENGINES

Aspiring devs often ask us "What game engine should I make my aweseome game in". This is a very in-depth question, that can impact the coming months of a developer. Which is why we're going to put them all in a tierlist and grossly simplify their up- and downsides.

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:20 Unity
05:28 RPG Maker
08:14 Godot
10:52 Game Maker Studio
14:55 Unreal
19:16 Construct 3
21:35 Own Engine
24:08 Boardgames
26:45 CryEngine
29:37 Phaser
32:05 Wrapup
32:46 Closing

---

[bitemegames]

UPDATE to the UPDATE:
Unity has backpedalled really hard, and actually made things better in certain cases. Yet they have still shattered a lot of trust in the Engine. I think at this point it's definitely a B instead of an A.

Why Unity isn't pure evil anymore (but not amazing either):

UPDATE (outdated):
So, Unity has been doing some weird moves lately, and I cannot in good faith standby the decision anymore to give it an A, it has shifted more to a B or even C with latest events.


If you want console support, go for Unreal, if you want something a little easier, aimed at PC/Mobile, Godot is the way to go.

Why no more Unity?

[akselst]

"Unity for life" ... Ooof. That one didn't age too well.

[beanny]

I remember using Game Maker in high school. I had no idea it was used to make Hotline Miami.

[matejunkie]

my first game engine was powerpoint 😅 made some point and click adventures during class.

[MeowMixKix]

The only point I disagree with heavily is GameMaker. As someone that has published games on Unity, GMS, and even GameSalad when I was starting out. When it comes to 2D games Gamemaker is the king of 2D. It has come a long way, is extremely powerful, and very flexible if you learn their GML language. Which is you know Python you pretty much know GML. I primarily use Unity because you can learn one engine and create anything from simple 2D up to complex 3D games, but if I was a 2D dev, I would stick with GameMaker. Everything you need is all provided and simple to use. You can create your sprites etc in engine when creating your objects if you want. You can do pretty much anything you want as long as its 2D. The only thing UE and Unity have over it is the ability to work up to 3D. A big thing for me when working with an engine is the ability to understand it and its organization. Gamemaker along with Unity are both very similar in organization and its a lot easier to understand how things work. Unreal always feels far more complicated for even the simplest task. As for GM visual editor, its far more complex than he is saying here. Maybe he is confusing GameMaker with GameSalad or a very old version of GM... idk. GMS2 change GM a lot and it has a lot of experienced 2D studios using it and very successfully.

Another Engine not mentioned here that is big behind the scenes with corporations etc and great for mobile games is GDevelope. It is starting to gain a lot of traction and looks to be a great starting point for people that aren't great with programming.

[VincentHendriks]

The information on GameMaker is honestly pretty misinformed. At the time this video was made:
-GameMaker was already free for educational purposes.
-"If you get started you outgrow it in a month, it's very niche". What are you basing this on? It's one of the most general purpose 2d engines out there, it can do pretty much anything in 2d. And "You can make anything with it, it's just not gonna be great". This is just bullshit, GameMaker is limited to your skills as a developer. Not unlike any other engine.
- "You can force it for 3D stuff with their pre-made assets and things like that." What on earth do assets have to do with an engine. People literally made custom doom/quake map loaders in GameMaker. You just need to do 3d yourself since it's a 2d engine.

Don't get me wrong, it's great that you guys are making comparisons, but this entire section is pretty misinformed. It is just really disappointing that almost all comparison videos on game engines are really shallow, generally misinformed and won't help people make an informed decision at all.

Apart from that, GameMaker's license structure has been updated at 21/11/2023, GameMaker is now:
-Free for non-commercial use.
-One-time fee for commercial use.
-Subscription model only for enterprise + console exports.

[FerbelDnB]

Interesting to include board games, I think nowadays a lot of people forget about them and it actually could give you a lot of new perspectives you can utilize in the game making process. Good watch guys! :))

[billrazor]

GDevelop 5 is a good option for beginners. It's a no-code game engine, basically a free alternative to Construct. Pretty good for fast prototyping as well.

[balohna]

I moved from Unity and Unreal to GameMaker because I liked the simplicity. You can do quite a lot with it as long as you understand the limitations. It's fun to use, which was the most important thing for me. I write code in it, not the drag and drop system.

[amirnathoo]

GD Script is not based on Go, but Python I believe

[bonehelm]

This is pointless. You guys have only ever used Unity in a serious capacity. So how can you rate engines you've never used? I use Construct 3 and have never programmed it in javascript. The visual event system is sufficient. I have 2 games published on steam with Construct 3, so it can do desktop as well.

[jmhimara]

I believe with Gamemaker Studio, you don't have to pay indefinitely. You just have to pay once to export the game into a Desktop format, then you can safely unsubscribe from the software.

[countotuscany]

Sweet video! I think you guys got an unfortunate impression of Gamemaker Studio. I've been using it for a while, and I've never actually used the drag and drop. If you wanna make a 2D game it's really amazing. GM Language is very well designed (feels like something between Python and C). There is a lot more value there than just a stepping stone

[danielmejia]

There is also Unigine, O3DE, and Several frameworks that would allow to make a custom engine "easier" like Ogre and Raylib.

[honaleri]

I loved this video. Hope your channel gets bigger. You guys are very relaxing to watch!

I spent WAY too much time studying game engines.

My personal opinion.
Several things you need to know before picking an engine:
1- What the game is, and all of its limits. Thoroughly understand your desires first.
2- What you are willing to play. (Both for the engine, and for the royalty structure.)
3- How much do you know? And How much are you willing to learn? (In terms of coding, modeling, art, ect.)
4- How committed are you to the game. (Not necessary for picking an engine, just important to know in general.)

Once you have an answer...
There are a LOT of engines. Here are the ones I know off my head.

The top teir:
Godot, Unity, Unreal Engine

The "Low Code" teir:
(Consider these if you don't want to learn to code, but will learn to use the engine, these can help.)
-RPG Maker
-Bakin Engine/ Smile Game Engine
-ClickFusion
-GDevelop

2D Game tier:
(These are all for 2D games, and are exceptional for that. But many above can do that as well.There are a lot in this teir, I can't recall all of them.)
Phaser
Debold
Construct 3
Game Maker (But..don't.)

Market Place/ No Assets:
(These are things to consider if you need assets for the game packaged WITH the game, so you only need to create the game, not the assets. Some of these are low-code as well. Warning, all of these are "market place" engines, meaning all the games made in them are hooked into a marketplace, you can't put them up on steam, or somehting. So their use case is limited, but they can still make money, just via their marketplace. If you haven't heard of them, then...well...that says a lot about their auidence. Only recommed for hobbies, not for more serious game development.)

CliCli
Yahaha
Core Engine (Mantacore)
dotbigbang
Crayta

Frameworks:
I can't mention these by name, but if you are great a coding, you could use a framework, which is like....the moving pieces of an engine, minus the ease of use and stuff.

Make your own Engine:
If you think of this a solution, maybe it is, but really, you'll spend 10 years making it before you make the game. So...maybe not.
You can learn how to do this using G3D Innovation Engine. Which can help you make your own Engine. You could even rig together a lot of open source code (MAYBE) to make your own thing, like building on top of Godot, or Blender, or something else 100% free. But again, only if its necessary, and you'd know if it was necessary, if you know what you can't do in other engines, so, this paragraph is pointless for anyone who IS ready for this option, as those who don't know, don't need to be told how. lol. You ain't ready if you needed to read this. For example, Dwarft Fortress uses its own engine, its a unique game as well, it can't be remade in just anything. It also took like, 20 years or something to make. So...

Bonus Round:

Fantasy Consoles:

For the niche of all niche, with have Fantasy Consoles, which are, typically, ALL in ONE game design tools, but for a very tight use case, to make a game FOR the fantasy console you made the game in. These are...pretty dang cool, if you ask me. But far from popular, so there is very little documentation on most, and very few gamers for the games made. But, this could be a fun adventure for someone. Coding required. Many use Lua as a coding language, but some use a verity of other languages.
What makes them cool is that, they are all in one. You can make the music, the pixel art, the code, and anything else you need, in the engine itself, and the engine plays the games you and others made. Cool concept. They often use restrictive designs, so, you can only use like 1 MB for the SUM of your game, or something like that. They are very "retro" and intended to mimic old consoles, and old tech, but, emulated. Very cool concept, very fun for the hype niche fan.

Pico 8
Lico 12
Tic 80
Pixel Vision 8
(And, many others. I think a good list of them was on github somewhere.)


Hope this was helpful for any passerby!

[DirtyCurti]

Construct 3 should be way higher. Construct 3 is so good and simple for beginners. You can literally make a functioning platformer in a few clicks. Only issues I have found is the small community (making it hard to troubleshoot some things) and the monthly pay model. However, for it's easy functionality for people who don't know how to code, it kind of makes it worth it. At least until you learn how to code efficiently.

[juyas]

Creating my own engine (or in my case, being part of a group to create one), just for the experience really really helped me. Like you already said, it teaches you about the logical foundation of an engine and tremendously boosts your knowledge about commonly used systems in popular engines. Just by having many years of programming experience and the knowledge from building an engine, I learned to build a reasonably solid game within 2 weeks (1 week learning through experimentation, 1 week gamejam) with unity.

If you do have the intention of learning everything there is to it and you wanna feel good about knowing whats actually going on behind the scenes, building an engine really boosts your progress even if it takes more time to actually get into making games. And keep it simple, I recommend just doing 2D instead 3D, because the problems you gonna solve are similar, but 3D is like a cubic factor more work to do, even if its 'just' one extra dimension. Learn about concepts, not any universally applicable world-fomula!

Thanks for the video and actually mentioning the "create your own engine"-part, I have rarely seen this done right :)

[Funcestor]

If you make a video about ranking game engines you should at least do more research and not form an opinion from hearsay.
Because it really feels like, that you didn't put much effort into the segment regarding GameMaker.

"It sounds like a learning tool more than an actual production ready game engine"
-> Many popular/successful games where made in it:
Untertale, Hyperlight Drifter, HoloCure, Hotline Miami, Nuclear Throne, Pizza Tower, Katana Zero, VA-11 Hall-A, Downfall, Rivals of Aether, Nidhogg, Loop Hero, ...

"With GameMaker you have to pay 10 bucks a month even if you have 0 sales"
-> You can use the Engine for free and only have to pay for the subscription when you want to export / create the build of the game. Everything after that is independent of your subscription.
You are free to sell your exported game even without an active subscription. No Royalties.

If you really want to, you can finish your game, pay for 1 month, export, and then cancel the subscription.
Problem is, if you plan to update your game to fix bugs or add content you need the sub again to create the new export.

Edit: typos

[spatchler]

I feel like something i dont hear many people talking about is the design of godot. Its just got great architecture for example how it uses its own node system instead of separate entities and components.

[chaslinux]

It's unfortunate that Opera made Gamemaker subscription-based. I bought GM version 1.4 on a humble bundle with the Windows/Mac Os/Linux exports, and later GM v 2.x on the same. It was a pretty great deal. After using Gamemaker, one of the annoying things I found with Unity was every tutorial spent an inordinate amount of time talking about the UI, instead of actually getting down to coding. When I started learning GM I found that most of the tutorials touched a bit on UI, but got right into writing GML code. Just my experience... but looking at Unity now just because of the extensiveness.