{"slug": "unreal-engine", "name": "Unreal Engine", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "Epic Games' real-time 3D engine for games, film, VR and visualization.", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 22, "warners": 5, "score": 3.805, "rising": -1.96, "first": "2025-11-01", "latest": "2026-10-05", "why": "Recommended as a ready-made engine that lets developers focus on the game instead of building tools, and praised for high-end visuals and VR rendering.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 12, "compare": 0, "warn": 5}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": ["Focus on game", "Visual quality"], "caveat": "Game performance", "short_quote": "They focused on the game itself, and let the engine do the heavy lifting... to a superb result.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.unrealengine.com", "pricing": "unknown", "aliases": ["Unreal Engine", "Unreal Engine 5"], "verdict": [{"text": "Recommended as a ready-made engine that lets developers focus on the game instead of building tools", "cites": [{"id": 780154610, "item_id": 48759663, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48759663", "by": "Mierenik", "date": "2026-07-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you just want to make a game, use a game engine like Unity, Godot or Unreal.", "excerpt": "Depends on what you want to do. If you just want to make a game, use a game engine like Unity, Godot or Unreal. If you want to do graphics, like making engines, simulations, renderers then you should learn a low-level language and a graphics API. For the language I recommend C++, you can also use C or Rust but C might be a bit too difficult and you don't want to fight the language since graphics APIs are already hard", "context": "", "use_case": "making a game", "switched_from": "", "story": "What to Learn to Be a Graphics Programmer"}, {"id": 763031872, "item_id": 47689492, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47689492", "by": "amiga386", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "learn all the bells and whistles of Unreal Engine", "excerpt": "You'd be committing the classic fallacy of \"i'll just work on these tools, then make the game\", which while a fun exercise, almost never results in a game being released. Think about what your ultimate goal is: - you want to make games: use an existing engine. don't bother with half of the features, focus on whether the game is fun or not. add polish (like character animation transitions) later. use stock assets to b", "context": "", "use_case": "learning for games industry career", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: M. C. Escher spiral in WebGL inspired by 3Blue1Brown"}, {"id": 755571600, "item_id": 47223225, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223225", "by": "the__alchemist", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They focused on the game itself, and let the engine do the heavy lifting... to a superb result.", "excerpt": "3 anecdotes: - For Talos Principle 2, Croteam switched from their own engine to UE5. The description was \"It would be like attempting to sprint and catch up with a train that is already far down the track and accelerating even faster.\". From a user's perspective, observe the graphics of Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem and Talos Principle 2: Same company, released at a similar time. Talos Principle (UE5) looks dramaticall", "context": "graphics programmer", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)"}]}, {"text": ", and praised for high-end visuals and VR rendering.", "cites": [{"id": 755571600, "item_id": 47223225, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223225", "by": "the__alchemist", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They focused on the game itself, and let the engine do the heavy lifting... to a superb result.", "excerpt": "3 anecdotes: - For Talos Principle 2, Croteam switched from their own engine to UE5. The description was \"It would be like attempting to sprint and catch up with a train that is already far down the track and accelerating even faster.\". From a user's perspective, observe the graphics of Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem and Talos Principle 2: Same company, released at a similar time. Talos Principle (UE5) looks dramaticall", "context": "graphics programmer", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)"}, {"id": 797255552, "item_id": 49828472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828472", "by": "chownfm", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The best thing I seen in VR was the unreal engine VR demo.", "excerpt": "I hate Meta with a passion but I think the real problem is not embracing Web XR and an open ecosystem. I love the Meta Quest 3 in terms of hardware but I haven't put the Quest on in 6 months because I don't play games so there is so little content. This solves nothing in terms of what I don't like about VR. The headset weight was no issue at all for me. Then trying to develop with the unreal engine and the Quest 3 wa", "context": "", "use_case": "VR development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta VR Glasses"}, {"id": 785670640, "item_id": 49104415, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104415", "by": "user68858788", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Unreal Engine to set up all the materials, lighting, and VR stuff.", "excerpt": "I did this using the Meta Quest when designing our bathroom. I used Unreal Engine to set up all the materials, lighting, and VR stuff. It worked great. There's nothing better than walking through a design. It turned out to be the _only_ way I was able to get over my analysis paralysis and actually commit to the project. I took pictures from all angles and printed them for our contractors, and they found it very usefu", "context": "home renovation", "use_case": "visualizing bathroom design in VR", "switched_from": "", "story": "The coolest use for the Vision Pro"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is that modern Unreal games run poorly or feel worse than custom-engine games", "cites": [{"id": 760240752, "item_id": 47515047, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515047", "by": "mawadev", "date": "2026-03-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "If you look at the technical state of Unreal Engine 5, then how modern GPUs can barely run games without frame generation which also makes them look blurry", "excerpt": "If you look at the technical state of Unreal Engine 5, then how modern GPUs can barely run games without frame generation which also makes them look blurry, then you are not surprised. Its not just gamers but also developers who are fed up with the status quo of how games are done these days. The big use case for UE moved from technical excellence to churning through people who can work on your game for hiring conven", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls"}, {"id": 781125296, "item_id": 48820331, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48820331", "by": "ozgrakkurt", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I don\u2019t think unreal engine games play and look as well as custom engine games.", "excerpt": "I don\u2019t think unreal engine games play and look as well as custom engine games. Like doom or cyberpunk. If you open cyberpunk without rtx etc. It really really looks good and also plays very well. Also there is obviously a massive gap between how games look and what the hardware is capable of. Cyberpunk runs better than total war attila on my computer as an example. Don\u2019t write a database, don\u2019t write a compiler, don", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software"}, {"id": 781156720, "item_id": 48822295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822295", "by": "officeplant", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The average modern Unreal and Unity game feels like shit", "excerpt": ">There are very few games where the engine is what made all the difference. Maybe if you ignore the entirety of the retro gaming scene where people are using old engines and modified old engines because they bring along a lot of the feel and expected behavior. The average modern Unreal and Unity game feels like shit, but some dev's can pull off making new engines behave like old ones we love. It requires a lot of wor", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software"}]}, {"text": ", followed by binary Blueprint files that text tools and AI agents struggle to work with.", "cites": [{"id": 799523665, "item_id": 49970229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49970229", "by": "shmolyneaux", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "That's a stark contrast to Unreal Engine's binary format for blueprints (visual scripting).", "excerpt": "I love plain text, but the calculus of being able to access the content in 50 years is much more interesting in the age of agents. They can infer the meaning of structured data without schemas, decompressed archives, find embedded files, etc. It's not perfect, but the durability of binary formats is better now than it has ever been. It's not baked-in to the weights of any model, but agents can write their own tools t", "context": "", "use_case": "game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plain text is still one of the best technologies we have"}, {"id": 782362944, "item_id": 48897684, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897684", "by": "overgard", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "when I'm writing code for Unreal Engine in C++ & Blueprint I pretty much do it by hand", "excerpt": "They really don't. Even per-project it can be a shitshow. For instance, while I use LLMs to write some typescript, when I'm writing code for Unreal Engine in C++ & Blueprint I pretty much do it by hand because it absolutely can't do blueprint in any meaningful sense. Even the most basic requests result in an absolute mess. (I imagine it's also very hard to train on since its stored as binary data). Even the C++ code ", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Focus on game", "summary": "Commenters recommend using an existing engine like Unreal so effort goes into the game rather than the tech.", "quotes": [{"id": 780154610, "item_id": 48759663, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48759663", "by": "Mierenik", "date": "2026-07-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you just want to make a game, use a game engine like Unity, Godot or Unreal.", "excerpt": "Depends on what you want to do. If you just want to make a game, use a game engine like Unity, Godot or Unreal. If you want to do graphics, like making engines, simulations, renderers then you should learn a low-level language and a graphics API. For the language I recommend C++, you can also use C or Rust but C might be a bit too difficult and you don't want to fight the language since graphics APIs are already hard", "context": "", "use_case": "making a game", "switched_from": "", "story": "What to Learn to Be a Graphics Programmer"}, {"id": 755571600, "item_id": 47223225, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223225", "by": "the__alchemist", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They focused on the game itself, and let the engine do the heavy lifting... to a superb result.", "excerpt": "3 anecdotes: - For Talos Principle 2, Croteam switched from their own engine to UE5. The description was \"It would be like attempting to sprint and catch up with a train that is already far down the track and accelerating even faster.\". From a user's perspective, observe the graphics of Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem and Talos Principle 2: Same company, released at a similar time. Talos Principle (UE5) looks dramaticall", "context": "graphics programmer", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)"}, {"id": 797705009, "item_id": 49856563, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856563", "by": "Jare", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I stopped writing my own engines and used Unity, Unreal Engine, Phaser, Godot...", "excerpt": "- I started programming games in z80 back in 1983. I've had several periods of 1-2 years in my professional career where I have not programmed anything; at best I've still guided others (as lead or producer) and at worst nothing at all, not even looked at code (as director). It all came back every time I went back to the trenches. The question in my mind is, what do \"AI-native\" engineers have that they can come back ", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "One Month Without AI"}]}, {"label": "Visual quality", "summary": "Its graphics and tech demos are described as better than in-house engines and other VR content.", "quotes": [{"id": 755571600, "item_id": 47223225, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223225", "by": "the__alchemist", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They focused on the game itself, and let the engine do the heavy lifting... to a superb result.", "excerpt": "3 anecdotes: - For Talos Principle 2, Croteam switched from their own engine to UE5. The description was \"It would be like attempting to sprint and catch up with a train that is already far down the track and accelerating even faster.\". From a user's perspective, observe the graphics of Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem and Talos Principle 2: Same company, released at a similar time. Talos Principle (UE5) looks dramaticall", "context": "graphics programmer", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)"}, {"id": 797255552, "item_id": 49828472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828472", "by": "chownfm", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The best thing I seen in VR was the unreal engine VR demo.", "excerpt": "I hate Meta with a passion but I think the real problem is not embracing Web XR and an open ecosystem. I love the Meta Quest 3 in terms of hardware but I haven't put the Quest on in 6 months because I don't play games so there is so little content. This solves nothing in terms of what I don't like about VR. The headset weight was no issue at all for me. Then trying to develop with the unreal engine and the Quest 3 wa", "context": "", "use_case": "VR development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta VR Glasses"}, {"id": 781045392, "item_id": 48815337, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815337", "by": "Cthulhu_", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "There's improvement in tech - check out the Unreal Engine's tech demos for example", "excerpt": "There's improvement in tech - check out the Unreal Engine's tech demos for example - but that doesn't really translate into visible end results because one, modern hardware can't handle all the bells and whistles, and two, when you're playing it all just blends into the background, and composition/art direction trumps details and fidelity every day of the week. That said, the tech isn't wasted, it's also used in film", "context": "", "use_case": "game graphics", "switched_from": "", "story": "Resetting Xbox"}]}, {"label": "VR and visualization", "summary": "Used beyond games, such as walking through a bathroom design in VR and character hair physics.", "quotes": [{"id": 785670640, "item_id": 49104415, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104415", "by": "user68858788", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Unreal Engine to set up all the materials, lighting, and VR stuff.", "excerpt": "I did this using the Meta Quest when designing our bathroom. I used Unreal Engine to set up all the materials, lighting, and VR stuff. It worked great. There's nothing better than walking through a design. It turned out to be the _only_ way I was able to get over my analysis paralysis and actually commit to the project. I took pictures from all angles and printed them for our contractors, and they found it very usefu", "context": "home renovation", "use_case": "visualizing bathroom design in VR", "switched_from": "", "story": "The coolest use for the Vision Pro"}, {"id": 732496994, "item_id": 45781062, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45781062", "by": "Marshferm", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "we then export into unreal where the hair responds to physics", "excerpt": "I\u2019m not sure how these work, but AI accelerates the refinement of realistic textures. As an example, we just switched to Metahuman for human rig building. https://www.metahuman.com/en-US The devs building the rigs use real people, and Metahuman uses AI to actually increase their imperfections. We then shift into Blender where we construct hair and clothing. The hair uses internal AI that accelerates the process of in", "context": "", "use_case": "hair physics and game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Why I rarely see game dev startup here?"}]}, {"label": "Python scripting", "summary": "Native Python and editor scripting work well, including for driving AI agents.", "quotes": [{"id": 741238896, "item_id": 46327431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46327431", "by": "nmaleki", "date": "2025-12-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Unreal use in Python is now native and users can launch a dedicated server.", "excerpt": "I am currently working on a desktop application for 3D spreadsheets. The first version of the code looks like this, https://youtube.com/watch?v=rJuRTZOE99g The new version is much more feature rich, catering towards the user. Unreal use in Python is now native and users can launch a dedicated server. The development process can be slow, lots of waiting on compiling and cooking. The Python part of this project is grea", "context": "building a 3D spreadsheet app", "use_case": "3D spreadsheet desktop app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who here is not working on web apps/server code?"}, {"id": 796926352, "item_id": 49807897, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807897", "by": "vblanco", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "In my projects i use unreal and me and my team have tested out multiple things.", "excerpt": "In my projects i use unreal and me and my team have tested out multiple things. We have settled on no MCP complications whatsoever other than simply exposing the python scripting from the editor + a export step that can write the blueprints and asset data into plaintext so that the bot can grep them. This has given by far the strongest results, and we now have no issues having the agents edit game code and do operati", "context": "Game developer with a team", "use_case": "game development with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unreal Agent"}]}, {"label": "Industry skills", "summary": "Learning Unreal is recommended for getting work in the games industry.", "quotes": [{"id": 763031872, "item_id": 47689492, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47689492", "by": "amiga386", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "learn all the bells and whistles of Unreal Engine", "excerpt": "You'd be committing the classic fallacy of \"i'll just work on these tools, then make the game\", which while a fun exercise, almost never results in a game being released. Think about what your ultimate goal is: - you want to make games: use an existing engine. don't bother with half of the features, focus on whether the game is fun or not. add polish (like character animation transitions) later. use stock assets to b", "context": "", "use_case": "learning for games industry career", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: M. C. Escher spiral in WebGL inspired by 3Blue1Brown"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Game performance", "summary": "Commenters say UE5 games often need frame generation, look blurry, or play worse than custom-engine games.", "quotes": [{"id": 760240752, "item_id": 47515047, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515047", "by": "mawadev", "date": "2026-03-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "If you look at the technical state of Unreal Engine 5, then how modern GPUs can barely run games without frame generation which also makes them look blurry", "excerpt": "If you look at the technical state of Unreal Engine 5, then how modern GPUs can barely run games without frame generation which also makes them look blurry, then you are not surprised. Its not just gamers but also developers who are fed up with the status quo of how games are done these days. The big use case for UE moved from technical excellence to churning through people who can work on your game for hiring conven", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls"}, {"id": 781125296, "item_id": 48820331, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48820331", "by": "ozgrakkurt", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I don\u2019t think unreal engine games play and look as well as custom engine games.", "excerpt": "I don\u2019t think unreal engine games play and look as well as custom engine games. Like doom or cyberpunk. If you open cyberpunk without rtx etc. It really really looks good and also plays very well. Also there is obviously a massive gap between how games look and what the hardware is capable of. Cyberpunk runs better than total war attila on my computer as an example. Don\u2019t write a database, don\u2019t write a compiler, don", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software"}, {"id": 781156720, "item_id": 48822295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822295", "by": "officeplant", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The average modern Unreal and Unity game feels like shit", "excerpt": ">There are very few games where the engine is what made all the difference. Maybe if you ignore the entirety of the retro gaming scene where people are using old engines and modified old engines because they bring along a lot of the feel and expected behavior. The average modern Unreal and Unity game feels like shit, but some dev's can pull off making new engines behave like old ones we love. It requires a lot of wor", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software"}]}, {"label": "Binary Blueprints", "summary": "Blueprints are stored as binary, which makes them hard for LLMs and text tools to handle.", "quotes": [{"id": 799523665, "item_id": 49970229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49970229", "by": "shmolyneaux", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "That's a stark contrast to Unreal Engine's binary format for blueprints (visual scripting).", "excerpt": "I love plain text, but the calculus of being able to access the content in 50 years is much more interesting in the age of agents. They can infer the meaning of structured data without schemas, decompressed archives, find embedded files, etc. It's not perfect, but the durability of binary formats is better now than it has ever been. It's not baked-in to the weights of any model, but agents can write their own tools t", "context": "", "use_case": "game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plain text is still one of the best technologies we have"}, {"id": 782362944, "item_id": 48897684, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897684", "by": "overgard", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "when I'm writing code for Unreal Engine in C++ & Blueprint I pretty much do it by hand", "excerpt": "They really don't. Even per-project it can be a shitshow. For instance, while I use LLMs to write some typescript, when I'm writing code for Unreal Engine in C++ & Blueprint I pretty much do it by hand because it absolutely can't do blueprint in any meaningful sense. Even the most basic requests result in an absolute mess. (I imagine it's also very hard to train on since its stored as binary data). Even the C++ code ", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke"}, {"id": 796926352, "item_id": 49807897, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807897", "by": "vblanco", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "In my projects i use unreal and me and my team have tested out multiple things.", "excerpt": "In my projects i use unreal and me and my team have tested out multiple things. We have settled on no MCP complications whatsoever other than simply exposing the python scripting from the editor + a export step that can write the blueprints and asset data into plaintext so that the bot can grep them. This has given by far the strongest results, and we now have no issues having the agents edit game code and do operati", "context": "Game developer with a team", "use_case": "game development with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unreal Agent"}]}, {"label": "Beginner complexity", "summary": "Its large feature set can make it hard for beginners to know where to start.", "quotes": [{"id": 767763745, "item_id": 47985234, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47985234", "by": "LazVerry", "date": "2026-05-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Unity and Unreal Engine have too many features, which actually makes them less beginner-friendly", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve dabbled with a few game engines myself, but I feel like Unity and Unreal Engine have too many features, which actually makes them less beginner-friendly. It\u2019s hard to know where to even start. For pixel art games, I personally recommend GameMaker. It specializes in 2D, and since hits like Undertale were built with it, you can definitely create \"serious\" games. GML (GameMaker Language) is also quite easy to write", "context": "has dabbled with a few game engines", "use_case": "beginner game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best way to develop games for beginners"}, {"id": 736316596, "item_id": 46019787, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46019787", "by": "joegibbs", "date": "2025-11-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "even with a really modular system like Unreal it gets convoluted", "excerpt": "I think the ideal limit as far as complexity with no manual coding would be something like this new marketing site for my game (warning: 100mb of video on Chrome): https://redo--fallofanempire.netlify.app/ Cursor with Gemini 3. I didn't manually write a single line for it (except for the actual wording). Gemini did the React stuff, styling, writing ffmpeg commands for re-encoding the videos to work better with scroll", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Can you share what you built using Cursor/Agentic IDEs?"}]}, {"label": "Slow iteration", "summary": "Development can be slow because of compiling and cooking waits.", "quotes": [{"id": 741238896, "item_id": 46327431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46327431", "by": "nmaleki", "date": "2025-12-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Unreal use in Python is now native and users can launch a dedicated server.", "excerpt": "I am currently working on a desktop application for 3D spreadsheets. The first version of the code looks like this, https://youtube.com/watch?v=rJuRTZOE99g The new version is much more feature rich, catering towards the user. Unreal use in Python is now native and users can launch a dedicated server. The development process can be slow, lots of waiting on compiling and cooking. The Python part of this project is grea", "context": "building a 3D spreadsheet app", "use_case": "3D spreadsheet desktop app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who here is not working on web apps/server code?"}]}, {"label": "Quest development", "summary": "One commenter found developing for the Quest 3 with Unreal a poor experience.", "quotes": [{"id": 797255552, "item_id": 49828472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828472", "by": "chownfm", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The best thing I seen in VR was the unreal engine VR demo.", "excerpt": "I hate Meta with a passion but I think the real problem is not embracing Web XR and an open ecosystem. I love the Meta Quest 3 in terms of hardware but I haven't put the Quest on in 6 months because I don't play games so there is so little content. This solves nothing in terms of what I don't like about VR. The headset weight was no issue at all for me. Then trying to develop with the unreal engine and the Quest 3 wa", "context": "", "use_case": "VR development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta VR Glasses"}]}], "who": [{"by": "vblanco", "context": "Game developer with a team", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807897", "date": "2026-09-22"}, {"by": "oneneptune", "context": "hobbyist game dev", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234210", "date": "2026-08-09"}, {"by": "user68858788", "context": "home renovation", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104415", "date": "2026-07-29"}, {"by": "deterministic", "context": "wrote two commercial game engines", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48841673", "date": "2026-07-08"}, {"by": "the__alchemist", "context": "graphics programmer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223225", "date": "2026-03-02"}, {"by": "nmaleki", "context": "building a 3D spreadsheet app", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46327431", "date": "2025-12-19"}], "tags": ["for game developers", "for VR projects", "for design visualization", "Python scriptable", "for games industry careers"], "use_cases": ["game development", "game engine", "vr development", "game development with agents", "visualizing bathroom design in vr", "game graphics"], "compared": [{"slug": "unity", "name": "Unity", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "godot", "name": "Godot", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "blender", "name": "Blender", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "raylib", "name": "raylib", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gamemaker", "name": "GameMaker", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48819244", "title": "Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49968906", "title": "Plain text is still one of the best technologies we have", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49855018", "title": "One Month Without AI", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49824268", "title": "Meta VR Glasses", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805748", "title": "Unreal Agent", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589140", "title": "Ask HN: What are you working on?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 2}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 2, "warn": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"warn": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 2, "warn": 2}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 4}, "2026-10": {"warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 799523665, "item_id": 49970229, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49970229", "by": "shmolyneaux", "date": "2026-10-05", "stance": "warn", "quote": "That's a stark contrast to Unreal Engine's binary format for blueprints (visual scripting).", "excerpt": "I love plain text, but the calculus of being able to access the content in 50 years is much more interesting in the age of agents. They can infer the meaning of structured data without schemas, decompressed archives, find embedded files, etc. It's not perfect, but the durability of binary formats is better now than it has ever been. It's not baked-in to the weights of any model, but agents can write their own tools t", "context": "", "use_case": "game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "Plain text is still one of the best technologies we have"}, {"id": 797705009, "item_id": 49856563, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856563", "by": "Jare", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I stopped writing my own engines and used Unity, Unreal Engine, Phaser, Godot...", "excerpt": "- I started programming games in z80 back in 1983. I've had several periods of 1-2 years in my professional career where I have not programmed anything; at best I've still guided others (as lead or producer) and at worst nothing at all, not even looked at code (as director). It all came back every time I went back to the trenches. The question in my mind is, what do \"AI-native\" engineers have that they can come back ", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "One Month Without AI"}, {"id": 797255552, "item_id": 49828472, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49828472", "by": "chownfm", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The best thing I seen in VR was the unreal engine VR demo.", "excerpt": "I hate Meta with a passion but I think the real problem is not embracing Web XR and an open ecosystem. I love the Meta Quest 3 in terms of hardware but I haven't put the Quest on in 6 months because I don't play games so there is so little content. This solves nothing in terms of what I don't like about VR. The headset weight was no issue at all for me. Then trying to develop with the unreal engine and the Quest 3 wa", "context": "", "use_case": "VR development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Meta VR Glasses"}, {"id": 796926352, "item_id": 49807897, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807897", "by": "vblanco", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "In my projects i use unreal and me and my team have tested out multiple things.", "excerpt": "In my projects i use unreal and me and my team have tested out multiple things. We have settled on no MCP complications whatsoever other than simply exposing the python scripting from the editor + a export step that can write the blueprints and asset data into plaintext so that the bot can grep them. This has given by far the strongest results, and we now have no issues having the agents edit game code and do operati", "context": "Game developer with a team", "use_case": "game development with agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Unreal Agent"}, {"id": 793737265, "item_id": 49608579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49608579", "by": "FallAlis", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "an open-source Unreal Engine 5 survival project", "excerpt": "Building ALIS, an open-source Unreal Engine 5 survival project. I\u2019ve generated two large-scale environments based on real cities: Manhattan and Kazan. The world pipeline reconstructs terrain, roads, buildings, water, and vegetation from real geographic data. https://github.com/fallintodusk/alis", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on?"}, {"id": 787747360, "item_id": 49234210, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49234210", "by": "oneneptune", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "plays nicely with the tools I use; unreal engine, unity, and blender", "excerpt": "I've been a hobbyist game dev for years; nothing published. Over the time I've built a massive collection of assets from various stores and stuff I've built. The solutions for managing assets seem to be largely in house tools studio build themselves and don't share. So I'm working on a digital asset management system that plays nicely with the tools I use; unreal engine, unity, and blender. I don't have anything publ", "context": "hobbyist game dev", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)"}, {"id": 786443537, "item_id": 49152721, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49152721", "by": "FallAlis", "date": "2026-08-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "an Unreal Engine 5 survival prototype", "excerpt": "Building ALIS, an Unreal Engine 5 survival prototype set in one reconstructed post-apocalyptic real-world city location. The public source and Windows release, with documented component licenses and GPG-signed checksums, are on GitHub: https://github.com/fallintodusk/alis. Lately: tuning the metabolism system -- vitals run on real medical timelines (dehydration kills in days, starvation in weeks, compressed for play)", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)"}, {"id": 785670640, "item_id": 49104415, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104415", "by": "user68858788", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used Unreal Engine to set up all the materials, lighting, and VR stuff.", "excerpt": "I did this using the Meta Quest when designing our bathroom. I used Unreal Engine to set up all the materials, lighting, and VR stuff. It worked great. There's nothing better than walking through a design. It turned out to be the _only_ way I was able to get over my analysis paralysis and actually commit to the project. I took pictures from all angles and printed them for our contractors, and they found it very usefu", "context": "home renovation", "use_case": "visualizing bathroom design in VR", "switched_from": "", "story": "The coolest use for the Vision Pro"}, {"id": 782362944, "item_id": 48897684, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897684", "by": "overgard", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "when I'm writing code for Unreal Engine in C++ & Blueprint I pretty much do it by hand", "excerpt": "They really don't. Even per-project it can be a shitshow. For instance, while I use LLMs to write some typescript, when I'm writing code for Unreal Engine in C++ & Blueprint I pretty much do it by hand because it absolutely can't do blueprint in any meaningful sense. Even the most basic requests result in an absolute mess. (I imagine it's also very hard to train on since its stored as binary data). Even the C++ code ", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Zig Creator Calls Spade a Spade, Anthropic Blows Smoke"}, {"id": 781466768, "item_id": 48841673, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48841673", "by": "deterministic", "date": "2026-07-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend taking a look at a real game engine (Unreal or Unity) and compare.", "excerpt": "> They built a game engine to render text for cripes sake! Nope they didn't. I recommend taking a look at a real game engine (Unreal or Unity) and compare. I personally wrote two game engines used for commercial games. Which included rendering text. It is not hard.", "context": "wrote two commercial game engines", "use_case": "game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Making of Claude Code"}, {"id": 781156720, "item_id": 48822295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822295", "by": "officeplant", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The average modern Unreal and Unity game feels like shit", "excerpt": ">There are very few games where the engine is what made all the difference. Maybe if you ignore the entirety of the retro gaming scene where people are using old engines and modified old engines because they bring along a lot of the feel and expected behavior. The average modern Unreal and Unity game feels like shit, but some dev's can pull off making new engines behave like old ones we love. It requires a lot of wor", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software"}, {"id": 781125296, "item_id": 48820331, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48820331", "by": "ozgrakkurt", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I don\u2019t think unreal engine games play and look as well as custom engine games.", "excerpt": "I don\u2019t think unreal engine games play and look as well as custom engine games. Like doom or cyberpunk. If you open cyberpunk without rtx etc. It really really looks good and also plays very well. Also there is obviously a massive gap between how games look and what the hardware is capable of. Cyberpunk runs better than total war attila on my computer as an example. Don\u2019t write a database, don\u2019t write a compiler, don", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft Fire IdTech Team at Id Software"}, {"id": 781045392, "item_id": 48815337, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48815337", "by": "Cthulhu_", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "There's improvement in tech - check out the Unreal Engine's tech demos for example", "excerpt": "There's improvement in tech - check out the Unreal Engine's tech demos for example - but that doesn't really translate into visible end results because one, modern hardware can't handle all the bells and whistles, and two, when you're playing it all just blends into the background, and composition/art direction trumps details and fidelity every day of the week. That said, the tech isn't wasted, it's also used in film", "context": "", "use_case": "game graphics", "switched_from": "", "story": "Resetting Xbox"}, {"id": 780154610, "item_id": 48759663, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48759663", "by": "Mierenik", "date": "2026-07-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you just want to make a game, use a game engine like Unity, Godot or Unreal.", "excerpt": "Depends on what you want to do. If you just want to make a game, use a game engine like Unity, Godot or Unreal. If you want to do graphics, like making engines, simulations, renderers then you should learn a low-level language and a graphics API. For the language I recommend C++, you can also use C or Rust but C might be a bit too difficult and you don't want to fight the language since graphics APIs are already hard", "context": "", "use_case": "making a game", "switched_from": "", "story": "What to Learn to Be a Graphics Programmer"}, {"id": 778813665, "item_id": 48675854, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48675854", "by": "astlouis44", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Unreal Engine 5 does support the web, albeit as a third party implementation (my company)", "excerpt": "Unreal Engine 5 does support the web, albeit as a third party implementation (my company) We spent the last several years building out a WebGPU RHI for UE5, along with tooling to make games load fast using asset streaming, while using less memory. We were recently featured by Gamesbeat. You can read more about it below or check out our website: https://gamesbeat.com/simplystream-unlocks-web-compatibility-for-unreal-e", "context": "", "use_case": "web game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "Half-Life 2 in a Browser"}, {"id": 767763745, "item_id": 47985234, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47985234", "by": "LazVerry", "date": "2026-05-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Unity and Unreal Engine have too many features, which actually makes them less beginner-friendly", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve dabbled with a few game engines myself, but I feel like Unity and Unreal Engine have too many features, which actually makes them less beginner-friendly. It\u2019s hard to know where to even start. For pixel art games, I personally recommend GameMaker. It specializes in 2D, and since hits like Undertale were built with it, you can definitely create \"serious\" games. GML (GameMaker Language) is also quite easy to write", "context": "has dabbled with a few game engines", "use_case": "beginner game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best way to develop games for beginners"}, {"id": 763031872, "item_id": 47689492, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47689492", "by": "amiga386", "date": "2026-04-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "learn all the bells and whistles of Unreal Engine", "excerpt": "You'd be committing the classic fallacy of \"i'll just work on these tools, then make the game\", which while a fun exercise, almost never results in a game being released. Think about what your ultimate goal is: - you want to make games: use an existing engine. don't bother with half of the features, focus on whether the game is fun or not. add polish (like character animation transitions) later. use stock assets to b", "context": "", "use_case": "learning for games industry career", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: M. C. Escher spiral in WebGL inspired by 3Blue1Brown"}, {"id": 760240752, "item_id": 47515047, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47515047", "by": "mawadev", "date": "2026-03-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "If you look at the technical state of Unreal Engine 5, then how modern GPUs can barely run games without frame generation which also makes them look blurry", "excerpt": "If you look at the technical state of Unreal Engine 5, then how modern GPUs can barely run games without frame generation which also makes them look blurry, then you are not surprised. Its not just gamers but also developers who are fed up with the status quo of how games are done these days. The big use case for UE moved from technical excellence to churning through people who can work on your game for hiring conven", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls"}, {"id": 756664533, "item_id": 47291533, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47291533", "by": "colejhudson", "date": "2026-03-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "folks typically use a library. See Unreal Engine, raylib, godot, qt, etc.", "excerpt": "re, iteration: Have you encountered ImGui [0]? It's basically standard when prototyping any sort of graphical application. re, GUIs in statically typed languages: As you might expect, folks typically use a library. See Unreal Engine, raylib, godot, qt, etc. Sans that, any sort of 2D graphics library can get the job done with a little work. You might also take a look at SwiftUI if you have an Apple device. [0]: https:", "context": "", "use_case": "GUIs in statically typed languages", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS code injection for fun and no profit (2024)"}, {"id": 755571600, "item_id": 47223225, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223225", "by": "the__alchemist", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They focused on the game itself, and let the engine do the heavy lifting... to a superb result.", "excerpt": "3 anecdotes: - For Talos Principle 2, Croteam switched from their own engine to UE5. The description was \"It would be like attempting to sprint and catch up with a train that is already far down the track and accelerating even faster.\". From a user's perspective, observe the graphics of Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem and Talos Principle 2: Same company, released at a similar time. Talos Principle (UE5) looks dramaticall", "context": "graphics programmer", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Making Video Games in 2025 (without an engine)"}, {"id": 741238896, "item_id": 46327431, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46327431", "by": "nmaleki", "date": "2025-12-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Unreal use in Python is now native and users can launch a dedicated server.", "excerpt": "I am currently working on a desktop application for 3D spreadsheets. The first version of the code looks like this, https://youtube.com/watch?v=rJuRTZOE99g The new version is much more feature rich, catering towards the user. Unreal use in Python is now native and users can launch a dedicated server. The development process can be slow, lots of waiting on compiling and cooking. The Python part of this project is grea", "context": "building a 3D spreadsheet app", "use_case": "3D spreadsheet desktop app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Who here is not working on web apps/server code?"}, {"id": 736316596, "item_id": 46019787, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46019787", "by": "joegibbs", "date": "2025-11-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "even with a really modular system like Unreal it gets convoluted", "excerpt": "I think the ideal limit as far as complexity with no manual coding would be something like this new marketing site for my game (warning: 100mb of video on Chrome): https://redo--fallofanempire.netlify.app/ Cursor with Gemini 3. I didn't manually write a single line for it (except for the actual wording). Gemini did the React stuff, styling, writing ffmpeg commands for re-encoding the videos to work better with scroll", "context": "", "use_case": "game development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Can you share what you built using Cursor/Agentic IDEs?"}, {"id": 732496994, "item_id": 45781062, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45781062", "by": "Marshferm", "date": "2025-11-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "we then export into unreal where the hair responds to physics", "excerpt": "I\u2019m not sure how these work, but AI accelerates the refinement of realistic textures. As an example, we just switched to Metahuman for human rig building. https://www.metahuman.com/en-US The devs building the rigs use real people, and Metahuman uses AI to actually increase their imperfections. We then shift into Blender where we construct hair and clothing. The hair uses internal AI that accelerates the process of in", "context": "", "use_case": "hair physics and game engine", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Why I rarely see game dev startup here?"}]}