What if you were given the job of making the next game in a AAA series only you had to...

Select a new game engine for the franchise, would you choose Unity?

Apparently the Mass Effect game might be needing or getting it's next release on a new game engine, which got me thinking if you were in charge of a AAA project which game engine would you choose and why?

Or what game franchises do you think would/could transition well to Unity?

 

UnityRealBiteCryDrop6 2025 Mk2 or Ren'Py.

 

For me personally, since I really only know Unity well I'd have to choose Unity. But Unity, as well as Unreal, are general purpose game engines. General purpose engines are not ideal for AAA titles. For AAA, you typically want an engine written from the ground up optimized for the specific kind of game you're making.

AAA game engines are like Formula 1 racecars. They are purpose built for their specific race, but to do so they have to sacrifice in areas which would make them useful for other general purposes. Yes they can win their AAA race, but good luck picking up the kids from school, working as an Uber on the weekend, and going on a grocery run.

General purpose engines like Unity are like a Toyota Corolla or Ford F150. You're not going to win against an F1 racecar in their AAA race, but there's so many things you can do that the F1 racecar simply can't.

 

No. If I were developing a AAA game I would be hiring developers who have worked on AAA projects and I expect out of the ones that have worked with publicly available engines that the ones familiar with Unreal outnumber the ones familiar with Unity.

 

I chose Unity because I prefer how Unity works. I more than understand Unreal appeal, it's great, but for the life of me every time I need to do something it's one problem after the other. Right now I'm fighting because Unreal, for no apparent reason, decided it's going to compress morph target animations in a weird way, and they look jittery and insane looking. And I'm closing in into the problem but there's a lot of trial and error with its crazy compression techniques. Also it crashes a lot.

 

the first thing i want to know is "what do other people already know?"

so then I look for other studios who have faced similar situation to me, and see what they did and learned.

You have to think about the specifics of whatever franchise this is you are contributing to, and then also think about your team composition/disposition.

Maybe its better to build a new engine. Maybe it's not. Maybe unity is the worst possible engine for the game but the best people you can hire know it and nothing else... kind of pointless to have a very strong opinion about a hypothetical.

 

Hmmm. Interesting question. But for a game dev, this seems like a semi tough one to answer. But the question is good though.

 

What is the rendering style? Physics based/character based/other? What is the main mechanic? How extensive is the UI? This would affect my decision.

 

If I had to make Witcher 4, I'd use Unity. Also, if I had to make the Witcher 4, it would mostly just be the demo scene that comes with RPG Builder with some PS1-style graphics.