What actually is a game engine, and how do they differ from one another? (e.g. Unreal Engine vs Cryengine)

Question

What actually is a game engine, and how do they differ from one another? (e.g. Unreal Engine vs Cryengine)

In: Technology

Answer 1

In programming things are built up in layers. Instead of coding everything in binary, we build languages. Instead of reinventing code, we create libraries of reusable code to use on new projects.

A game engine follows the same idea. It’s basically a big toolbox that full of tools for building a game. It’s a little more complicated than that, for example, some tools depend on other in complex ways that make it so you can’t necessarily just hack two engines together, but that’s basically it.

All these tools are generally jammed together into one big program that acts to not only hold all the tools, but also to compile or outright run the game, and often a code editor and GUI elements to help developers.