Fast Iteration

If you ever created something in Unity you know that hot reloading is a mess. Because Unity is still using Mono instead of the .Net runtime everything that has to do with C# is just not as good as you would expect it to be.

Hot-Reload takes too long, it often breaks, scripting compiling in general can take ages or just crash Unity.

When talking about iteration speed in Unreal Engine 5 there is no going around to mention Angel Script. It’s a scripting engine to replace blueprints and C++ and developed by Hazelight, creators of Split Fiction and It Takes Two. Games by other developers also use it like ARC Raiders or THE FINALS.

And wow, it just works. Adding or changing a new function for an actor at runtime? Yep works without a hitch. Adding a new field without breaking my entire editor? Of course, it works, this is not Unity!

In Unreal I had the feeling that implementing my idea can be implemented so fast. In other engines I often encounter the situation of OH, I need to directly listen for all input events and have checked explicitly on which event I want something to happen. In Unreal I can just listen for the event of the specific input action. This is all I just wanted. Attaching a function on an input event everywhere I want. I don’t want to write a switch statement.

Blueprints

Of course when talking about iteration speed we also need to address the Blueprints. Blueprints are the visual node editor to write code. Let’s not talk about performance of them because It’s just not a problem. The main problem with Blueprints happens when they become just a bit too big. Too many indirections. Too many branches. It’s not good-looking at it and gets hard to understand it with a first glance.

In these cases writing C++ would be a choice to consider. But when you use Angel Script you would just use this all the time.

With that said I really like Blueprints when I just have to quickly prototype something. They can be easy translated to Angel Script. So what I mostly do is deleting the blueprints after a while. In this case having too many Blueprints instead of Angel Script would be a smell.

Materials and Shaders

The visual editor to create materials and shaders in general is so nice. It reminds me of using Blender. Its gets to the point.

Graphics

Unreal Engine gives you really easy options for nice looking graphics where you want them. You have every feature available and tweak them as desired. If the developer not chooses to do so the game gets the Unreal default look you often see.

In Unity you get bombarded by the question of what render pipeline you want to choose. You want the best looking graphics? High-Definition-Render-Pipeline it is. Oh, you want to use more advanced shaders? Choose the Universal-Render-Pipeline instead. And no you cannot mix and match.

There are really cool features in the HDRP I wish I could use with URP. HDRP feels a bit like the attempt to say: “No, No Unity does have incredible graphics!”

Open Source

I really, really like that Unreal Engine 5 can be built from source, and it just works. I can look at the code and actually understand it. Godot also can be built from source but my personal experience with modifying Godot is far from good. Sadly much of the Godot is read only. It’s hard to understand and harder to extend.

What I really hate in Godot is that most of the UI gets procedurally drawn. Take a look at the example of how the code editor gets drawn.

I wrote my own UE5 plugin in mere hours without good prior knowledge of the engine. I don’t think I could do the same so fast for Godot.