The Meaning of using Game Engines: Unreal Engine 5

• Last Edited: February 2026.

I started learning about game development when I was 14, in 2004. At that time, professional game engines were not availabe.

Since the inception of real-time 3D in the mid-1990s, 3D game development dramatically evolved. My article analyzes the technical and economic evolution that led to the distinction between a game engine and a game, and evaluates why the adoption of general-purpose engines has become the industry standard for solo, indie, and some AAA teams.

Introduction

The never-ending debate between developing a custom game engine versus using a general-purpose engine, such as Unreal Engine or Unity, has yet a crystal-clear technical answer.

From a technical perspective, I argue that for solo developers and small-scale teams (up to 20 developers), and in some cases for AAA game studios as well, using an existing general-purpose game engine is the best strategic decision.
On the opposite side, I argue that building a custom engine very often create a massive technical overhead that doesn’t give increased product value, outside of very specific cases that I will highlight as well.

Creating a high-quality 3D game while meeting today’s quality standards is already an incredibly challenging task. Therefore, developing a custom game engine on top of that would only generate a gazillion of additional issues!

Moreover, the sheer amount of complexity of modern 3D game development, with ray-traced lightning, PBR textured assets, complex animations, and much more, make engine development a distinct discipline from game development. Thus, my article demonstrates how these are now two very separate professions.

The only cases I can think of where custom engines might make sense, as a solo dev or a small team, are the following:

• Games with very unique gameplay mechanics, such as unique physics capabilities or specific rendering techniques, although it’s less and less justifiable to find such instances. As we will see later, most people would give example of games that were developed during the late 2000s or the early 2010s, which are outdated, as engines such as Unity or Unreal have matured quite a lot.
• Learning Game Engine Development, although this will be efficient only for those who would like to become graphics programmers or game engine developers.
• Making games for very specific platforms, like retro game consoles or very niche hardware.

AAA Custom Engines

This article will not focus on triple-A studios (i.e., video game development studios with high revenue and large teams). Some have enough financial power to spend millions of dollars per year, and hire the most talented developers. Thus, they can afford the luxury to create a proprietary technology, specifically tailored to their own needs.

For AAA studios, building a custom game engine from scratch might help them to achieve higher quality standards than those possible with universal game engines, because they can tweak performance to a higher level. I mostly think about Rockstar Games in that specific case, with RAGE, a custom engine used for multiple franchises, including Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption.

This can indeed give competitive advantage over other game development studios, and help to create a higher-quality product.

But even in that case, we saw a major shift from creating proprietary, tailor-made engines to either creating more generic engines, used in entire studios instead of just for single games, or to use existing universal game engines.

Focus on 3D Games

It’s also very important to highlight that my article is focused on developing real-time 3D games (what we called true 3D way back when) with high-quality graphics. I am avoiding any explanation about 2D game development, as I know absolutely nothing about it.

Besides, I do not talk about low-poly games or simple 3D games using retro game development workflows, as these are far simpler from a technical standpoint, and sometimes too niche.

Lastly, I will avoid 3D mobile games with very simple graphics and gameplay. I only have long-term projects in mind.