Unity3D vs Unreal Engine from a Software Engineer Point of View

"Game development is difficult in the beginning regardless of which tool you decide to use"

Here's my personal take on learning both Unity 3D and Unreal Engine. I've spent a year and a half with each of these game development tools, and I'd like to share my thoughts on them from an individual who is learning more about indie development with these tools.

To give you some context, I've been working as a software engineer for about 7 years, with experience in C# and Java. However, I didn't have any prior experience with these game development tools. I taught myself using online tutorials, documentation, and lots of trial and error.

Like many beginners, I started with Unity3D because it's often recommended as the easier option. I found this to be true, especially since C# is more forgiving for developers. At the same time, I dabbled in Unreal Engine, but I found C++ to be more challenging due to syntax and compilation issues. Unity3D was simply more beginner-friendly, with a large community backing it through documentation, forums, and StackOverflow. On the other hand, Unreal Engine lacked comprehensive C++ documentation (which is still an issue today).

However, what I learned in Unity3D translated well to Unreal Engine because my ultimate goal was always to use Unreal Engine. The graphical capabilities of Unreal Engine are still superior to Unity3D, though the gap is narrowing over time. In terms of coding on each platform, Unity3D is still much easier for beginners entering the game development industry.

But does that mean Unreal Engine is too hard? Not at all. Like with any tool, there's a learning curve and a specific way the industry expects you to use it. Once you grasp this "industry standard" approach, certain elements become repetitive, allowing newcomers to develop a general understanding of what works. Ever since Jetbrains Rider improved to work with Unreal Engine, debugging code and having autocomplete work properly was a game changer. This is particularly useful for new developers who are jumping into the code without a mentor.

I talk about Unreal Engine constantly as a software engineer, only because it is seen by newcomers as the more difficult game engine to learn. Honestly, this is true in the early stages as I had personally struggled with this tool myself. But after spending what I would deem enough time, such as more than 6 months it actually makes more sense of how everything works together including how the code works.

If i was to rate the difficulty level of Unity3D vs Unreal Engine, this is how I would rate them on a scale of Easy, Medium, Hard, and Difficult:

1. First time user (less than 1 month): Unity3D - Hard, Unreal Engine - Difficult

2. Beginner (3 months): Unity3D - Hard, Unreal Engine - Difficult

3. Novice (6 months): Unity3D - Medium, Unreal Engine - Hard

4. Regular User (1 year): Unity3D - Easy, Unreal Engine - Medium

5. Seasoned User (2 years): Unity3D - Easy, Unreal Engine - Easy

I hope this helps to give you some expectations about what you can do to learn either of these game development technologies.