Today we are going to look at the game engines that have been the most impactful or important for game development. This list is heavily opinion based and driven by a few criteria. First all of the game engines (with one honourable mention exception) were all available to the general public in one form or another, so no proprietary game engines like RED or FOX engines made the list. Second, they are chosen on a mix of the number and commercial success of the games created, the size of the developer community (AKA, how many developers have used the engines) or generally based on the impact they had on the evolution of game development in general (this will make sense when you watch the video).
In reverse order (with timestamps included), the Top 10 Most Important Game Engines of All Time are:
Number 10 – 0:45 #10 – RPG Maker – https://www.rpgmakerweb.com/
Number 9 – 1:33 #9 – CryEngine – https://www.cryengine.com/
Number 8 – 2:42 #8 – Godot Engine – https://godotengine.org/
Number 7 – 3:57 #7 – GameMaker – https://gamemaker.io/en
Number 6 – 5:01 #6 – XNA/MonoGame/FNA – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_XNA
Number 5– 6:20 – #5 – Gamebryo/NetImmerse – http://www.gamebryo.com/
Number 4 – 7:34 – #4 – IdTech (Quake Engine) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech
Number 3- 10:34 – #3 – Renderware – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RenderWare
Number 2 – 11:39 – #2 – Unreal Engine – https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US
Number 1 – 12:51 – #1 – Unity Engine – https://unity.com/
Honourable Mentions
14:35 – Build Engine – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_(game_engine)
15:18 – Source Engine – https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source#Products_using_Source
16:19 – LithTech – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LithTech
17:32 – Frostbite Engine – https://www.ea.com/frostbite/engine
The reasoning and justifications for choosing each game engine is explained in the video below. No doubt I missed some engines or didn’t include engines or frameworks that you might have chosen. Do keep in mind, this entire list is just for fun and is from my opinion only. If you have your own list please share it in the YouTube video comments or on the GameFromScratch Discord server.