Unreal Engine 4

Unreal Engine 4 is a game engine that provides a wide range of opportunities for programmers, game designers and artists. The 4th version of the engine was released by Epic Games in 2014; its last release is 4.27, and in 2022 it was succeeded by Unreal Engine 5. Games built with it include Final Fantasy VII Remake, Days Gone and Dead Island 2. But on the 3rd version BioShock Infinite, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Batman: Arkham City, Bulletstorm, Mortal Kombat, the Mass Effect trilogy and many other famous games were created.

The engine is installed through the Epic Games Launcher, and the editor starts with the Project Browser, where you create a new project from templates such as First Person, Third Person, Top Down or Vehicle. In the central part of the interface there is the main Viewport window where all game objects will be placed. You can open several Viewports at once, but this requires additional system capacity. Above this window is the Toolbar, which is used to save, build, play and launch the project. The Content Browser with the project assets (sounds, models, textures, animations, etc.) is located at the bottom and the Modes panel is located at the top left of the window, with the help of which you can add various geometric shapes, light sources, landscape elements and other things. The World Outliner is displayed at the top right of the screen and lists all the objects in the level. In the lower right corner is the Details panel, where you can view and correct the properties of individual objects.

Game logic can be written in the Blueprint visual scripting language, in C++, or in a combination of both. Linking objects, level logic, inventory systems, health and damage of characters in the game - all this is built with Blueprint graphs and code.

Unreal Engine 4 offers a comprehensive suite of game development tools, enabling complex programming, design, and artistry within a single platform.

The engine is demanding on hardware: Epic recommends a quad-core 2.5 GHz processor, 8 GB of RAM and a DirectX 11 or 12 graphics card, and large scenes take noticeable time to build lighting and compile shaders. The engine is free to download; a 5% royalty applies to a game once its gross revenue exceeds 1 million US dollars, and the C++ source code is available on GitHub to registered users.