Best game engine?

Without having been given an objective criteria for measuring this bestness metric, I will make a whole bunch of assumptions about your situation and declare: Unity :P

The best game engine with zero cost at all is the one you made yourselfe because you then have full access to anything and know how things are done/need to be adapted to your needs.

But as this wasnt the intention of the question I think you might take a look at various free open source engines as there are

- Urho3D

- Lumberyard

The best game engine with zero cost at all is the one you made yourself

That's not zero cost though. It takes time to write an engine and time is money. Even if you say "make games, not engines!" you still have to put work into the engine part of the game. You will have a finished game faster if you use an existing engine.

That said, the best engine is the one you feel most comfortable using.

best engine for what exactly?

To give you an idea of the metrics:

- for games, archviz, or other interactive expieriences (Yes, game engines are nowadays used for all that)?

- If games, what genre (most game engines are quite genre agnostic, but there are speciality engines)?

- 2D or 3D graphics?

- what platform you want to be able to publish on?

Generally, for 3D games I'd say either Unity 5 or Unreal Engine 4. I personally think Unity 5 is easier to get into as a beginner, yet if you can master all the bells and wistles of Unreal Engine4, it gives you a tad more headroom at the highest of ends. UE4 has many high end things built in that you need to get access to in Unity over 3rd party assets (which often are not free), or develop yourself (which is again not free as it costs your time, and sometimes needs a lot of skill to pull off).

On the other hand, as said, I feel the Unity 5 editor is more accessible, and the documentation is better indexed, making your life easier when just starting with the engine.

The engines differ in licensing costs, these only kick in when you make some bucks with your end product though (quite a lot actually). So lets just say both are free(-ish).

In both cases, if you have never done game development before, you will face quite some learning curve. These are fully fledged 3D engines. You need some knowledge about 3D graphics, programming, and you need to get to know the engine editor before you will get anywhere. Tutorials will help, still, there are simpler and easier engines out there that might be enough for you depending on your requirements.

There's probably hundreds of threads like this, just search "best game engine" instead of adding on to the subject.

best engine for what exactly?

To give you an idea of the metrics:

- for games, archviz, or other interactive expieriences (Yes, game engines are nowadays used for all that)?

- If games, what genre (most game engines are quite genre agnostic, but there are speciality engines)?

- 2D or 3D graphics?

- what platform you want to be able to publish on?

Generally, for 3D games I'd say either Unity 5 or Unreal Engine 4. I personally think Unity 5 is easier to get into as a beginner, yet if you can master all the bells and wistles of Unreal Engine4, it gives you a tad more headroom at the highest of ends. UE4 has many high end things built in that you need to get access to in Unity over 3rd party assets (which often are not free), or develop yourself (which is again not free as it costs your time, and sometimes needs a lot of skill to pull off).

On the other hand, as said, I feel the Unity 5 editor is more accessible, and the documentation is better indexed, making your life easier when just starting with the engine.

The engines differ in licensing costs, these only kick in when you make some bucks with your end product though (quite a lot actually). So lets just say both are free(-ish).

In both cases, if you have never done game development before, you will face quite some learning curve. These are fully fledged 3D engines. You need some knowledge about 3D graphics, programming, and you need to get to know the engine editor before you will get anywhere. Tutorials will help, still, there are simpler and easier engines out there that might be enough for you depending on your requirements.

Thanks, I was originally looking at Unity because of the reputation and the 0 royalty fee. I have experiance in c++ and I just need something that will enable me to create the best content that I can create. I'll look into it :)

To put it simply what is the best game engine with 0 royalty fee? Something that can be Free or premium. Just Wondering :P

Pen and Paper. You can make an infinite number of games from it. No programming skill is needed. No artistic skill is needed. No worrying about hardware specs. It is the best game engine I have ever used. You can even make open world RPG games from it, with multiplayer, with infinite number of possibilities for player decisions.

To put it simply what is the best game engine with 0 royalty fee? Something that can be Free or premium. Just Wondering :P

Pen and Paper. You can make an infinite number of games from it. No programming skill is needed. No artistic skill is needed. No worrying about hardware specs. It is the best game engine I have ever used. You can even make open world RPG games from it, with multiplayer, with infinite number of possibilities for player decisions.

Thanks, but Im looking for something that I can program with (c++ preferably).

To put it simply what is the best game engine with 0 royalty fee? Something that can be Free or premium. Just Wondering :P

Pen and Paper. You can make an infinite number of games from it. No programming skill is needed. No artistic skill is needed. No worrying about hardware specs. It is the best game engine I have ever used. You can even make open world RPG games from it, with multiplayer, with infinite number of possibilities for player decisions.

Thanks, but Im looking for something that I can program with (c++ preferably).

Intended as a sarcastic remark. We don't exactly know what your end goal is. So at this point any engine that is free is easily the best engine for you.

Godot Engine... FREE and Functional.

www.godotengine.org

Don't know how to use? See Youtube for tutorials.

Ok, good luck.

Use Unity 5.

It has all the tutorials, help, forums, examples, books, .... you need.

Even if a given tutorial isnt enough for you, there are more writings on the topic possible.

All the other "free" engines, no matter how good they are, lack documentation/examples.

Been there, did a circle, went back using Unity.

Try this list.

Unity

Try this list.

Unity
Stencyl
Game Salad
Construct 2
Game Maker
Unreal
LibGDX
RPG Maker

You can check each of them and review. And choose the engine that possible fits to your game.

+ wave engine
Monogame.
If you consider being free and you want android and iOS export, you should remove game salad,construct 2,stencyl and game maker from list.

Create a sticky best engine topic? see one topic a day almost ^^

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Agamedev.net+best+engine

Try this list.

Unity

Stencyl

Game Salad

Construct 2

Game Maker

Unreal

LibGDX

RPG Maker

You can check each of them and review. And choose the engine that possible fits to your game.

Unreal very good and useful :)