Lunchtime Discussion: Engines

The most common criticism of modern gaming is that everything looks samey. Of course some of you will argue with me, and say that x, y or z is a much bigger issue, but the sameyness is something that those of us who inhabit TSA Towers complain a lot and something I see floating about on the internet at large. I’m also aware that sameyness isn’t an actual word, but it’s the best I can come up with; saying they’re similar doesn’t feel quite negative enough.

This issue can basically be broken down into two parts. Firstly, gaming is big business now. Big business means there’s a lot of money riding on a game and people don’t like to take as many risks when lots of money is involved. This lack of risk taking means that content can easily converge around a few basic templates that developers and publishers see as proven successes. Coupled with this is the prevalence of third party engines.

Of course third party engines have existed for a long time but the Unreal Engine, made famous by Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, really seems to have come to dominate this generation. With so many people using it it seems inevitable that games will begin to look more and more alike. However this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case.

Shadow Complex is a perfect example of this. It’s built on the Unreal Engine but looks fairly unique in my opinion. The reason? Chair Entertainment saw the benefits of the Unreal Engine, but didn’t use all of it. They decided they didn’t like the way the lighting engine made the game look so they stripped it out and built their own.

Then of course you’ve got Borderlands, also built on the Unreal Engine, but with a hugely distinctive look. It seems that a number of developers have forgotten that you’re allowed to do this with an engine. Yes you’ve licensed it, but you don’t have to use the engine in the same way as everyone else is.

Luckily there’s a new player rolling into town in the form of CryENGINE 3. Hopefully the fact that the engine is essentially identical across all platforms, as well as the ease of porting games that it brings, will draw developers to it. Maybe this will bring more variety to the look of games, or maybe everyone will jump from the Unreal Engine and we’ll just land on a new plateau of similarity.

Whilst a lot of developers chose to licence someone else’s engine it must be remembered that a lot of developers are doing brilliant work with proprietary engines. Uncharted 2 is widely accepted as the pinnacle of custom engines, but I’m really liking the look of Bungie’s handy-work in Halo: Reach. The games built on these engines do seem to stand out from the competition, but they also have a bigger budget and generally take longer to build.

So how do you feel about engines? Should more developers build their own engines? Does there need to be more of an attempt to bend an engine to the game rather than the other way round? Will added variety in third party engines change anything?