Pros of building your own game engine:
– It’s yours, no licensing issues ever
– It’s completely, exactly what you need for your game
– It’s probably extremely well optimized
Cons of building your own game engine:
– Maintenance
– Maintenance
– Maintenance
And that’s why one of the last big game developer with its own custom game engine, is giving up to use Unreal 5 for their next game.
Capcom –a company making its own game engines for 30+ years– also switched to Unreal not so long ago.
The funny thing is, while building next games, those companies might still feel like they should have used their custom stuff! But considering how *insanely* complex a robust game engine can be—especially when you think about all the platforms to support, now and in the future—, having Unreal support and other developers to share issues with is an absolute YASSS for everyone involved.
It’s a big shift for game development. Unreal is becoming the default tool akin to cameras on movie sets. Which is a great thing because designers have been desperately wanting this for twenty years.
Are custom engines dead? Not quite yet. Noita, Nintendo games. Those game are made with highly customized engines and those games are unique, in many ways. They have their own feel and that’s really, really something you want to achieve when making video games.
Can you afford it, though? The list of people who can is shrinking.