The Roots of Unreal Engine 4: Game Engines from 2006 to Today

Unreal is an extremely full-featured AAA game engine among many great alternatives. Let's look at these engines' roots, and at how access to game development tools has changed over the past 15 years.
00:00 - Introduction: The mid-2000's
01:42 - Democratization
03:50 - Unreal opens up: UDK and UE4
04:43 - Engines and frameworks today
06:39 - Unreal's reputation
07:40 - Unreal programming: more features, more complexity
08:17 - The learning curve
09:00 - Conclusion
Patreon: / alexforsythe
Twitter: / alexforsythe
#UnrealEngine #UE4 #programming

[@krisitak]

I hope this channel gains the recognition it deserves. High-quality content, and editing. Great job!

[@LowLevelLemmy]

The only youtuber I've smacked the bell on. When you return, I'll be ready 🍿🍿🍿

[@tommybazar]

3:44 Knowing how Zeus behaved in the Greek mythology, those dogs should watch their rears.

[@not_herobrine3752]

zeus moment

[@LalalaKirby]

I'm kicking myself for getting into a game design course so early (read: too early) so the newer features and programs that are accessible now weren't even a dream back then. I look forward to seeing more. I also can't afford much but heck yes I am now supporting your Patreon

[@zoeyorly8674]

I hope you made sure to pet those good boys

[@GabrielSantos-ut1xy]

Man, you're like a Keanu Reeves from the game development world, such a knowledge, and the quality of your content is awesome! Thanks for all your videos, specially about unreal.

[@Tuckzelda]

Wow, loving the editing on this video alex. looking forward to the full series!

[@arielarias9074]

Your channel is just really good. Not just the knowledge you share is great, but also the way it's edited and explained is pure high quality. I know these kind of channels sometimes take time to take off (game dev, etc), so I hope that doesn't discourage your from keep going. I also have around a decade using these engines professionally, but I always struggle to find the right material to share with people that is trying to understand about Unreal and its architecture, and from now, this channel is the automatic reference for all of them. Please keep up the great work

[@iltenahmet]

I've just discovered your channel, honestly your videos are beyond amazing, I hope you'll continue posting again.

[@QuackTeamJames]

Wooow, Game maker, I remember my first games on it ages ago. Though, a thorough documentation and comparison of the game engines you suggested would be really great to see! As someone who's only tinkered with Unity the once, and made a few levels for a hat in time (Unreal3), but never really built a complete project in either, I'm really looking forward to these upcoming videos! Thanks for all your hard work, Alex!

[@novaria]

Love the visual humour. So on point. Can't wait for people to catch on to how awesome you are (educational videos such as the UE fundamentals series set aside as well) Much Love

[@SoaringSimulator]

At the end of the 90s or 2001, In my free time, started using the first UDK or SDK. Probably was Unreal Editor 1 SDK. There was no KZbin so hard to learn how to code. Much later I started using the R.A.D. engine compoents and Angle Script code to make the very first private pre alpha version of my game. UDK3 came out, was grate but Unreal, later was awesome experience and teach me how to code. Now I'm back to U5. Thank you for your tutorials!

[@SolWake]

Well this video certainly hits different today lol.

[@ChristopherA20N]

Even after 2 years; as someone learning UE5, I was never able to get a clear definition of when to use which system. I always read "It's best to use a mixture" but never figured out what that mixture actually means. Thank you so much for making this video, it really helps a lot!

[@pm_ranj]

Your channel is great man

[@rileylass1109]

It's an easy decision to be a patreon supporter looking at the quality of these videos. I'm thankful you put so much effort into them!

[@IfItsNotFun]

This is fantastic, exactly what I was looking for. I’ve been busy with school, but this is motivating me to get back to game development when I have time!

[@mch43856]

Amazing channel!

[@SunShine-oe4rt]

This video was amazing, you deserve more views

[@mindurownbussines]

Awesome quality content. thanks

[@DiogoManteu]

Learning how to code in unreal engine's macro'd c++ also gets easier if you start with blueprints and once they work, translate into code.

[@vree_]

Im not a full-time developer in UE but I like to do some work on projects in my free time and your videos are great to fill in the gaps of knowledge I already have on the engine. Your knowledge as an experienced dev is invaluable!

[@thecancermen245]

Amazing content

[@Rose_Harmonic]

With how few people have seen this, I feel privileged to have found this myself.

[@WishMakers]

Great video Alex. Speaking as someone who has used Game Maker for *ten God-forsaken years* I'm really looking forward to exploring Godot now that I'm an actually competent programmer and have time, haha.

[@yunus5949]

Do you have a UE4 tutorial series? Your speech is very fluent! Nice

[@HH-xf9il]

Watched Blueprint vs C++... unbelievable quality !!! Hitting the bell icon

[@estranhokonsta]

As usual highly useful and mature advice for game engine rookies.

[@Fallen_Ninja]

I love this kind of content

[@BLaBZStation]

Blitz3D was a popular engine circa 2005.

[@lazarus8453]

Its kinda sad to see this channel very underrated . I hope one day you will get big .

[@plusmorale]

Top notch GameDev content!

[@jkazos]

Alex is one of The Good Ones.

[@Fallen_Ninja]

I enjoy your relaxed style. Do you have a tutorial series on Udemy or similar sites?

[@perceptino707]

Excellent and very insightful video. Adobe Shockwave Player (formerly Macromedia Shockwave Player) and Adobe Director (formerly Macromedia Director) was missing in history part.

[@character-creator]

Wow You truly are amazing. What a gift to be Articulate so well about a subject it’s so intense. I’m a 3-D odyssey near the first person that is introduced unreal In a manner that makes me want to become a programmer. Thank you

[@sandermann]

Great!

[@gusteven3937]

非常好，非常棒，加油兄弟！

[@RootsterAnon]

I am crying because you stopped doing Unreal related videos.

[@samiarola3819]

This is great stuff. I've climbed the ladder from the bottom in the 90's by writing my own 3d engines on assembler, used Unity since the first days and lately I've been trying to get into Unreal, and I find it extremely frustrating. The engine core is (probably due to the legacy) a huge mess, coming from Unity's (relatively) clean, component based design. Basically you get 90% of Fortnite with a single click and you just can't seem to get rid of it :D What I'd like to see more is videos with "Unreal engine for Unity users" approach, as I find it really hard to do even the very basic things, such as communication between objects, writing the actual game state logic, UI etc. which is very straightforward in Unity.

[@estranhokonsta]

"... Basically you get 90% of Fortnite with a single click and you just can't seem to get rid of it" Lol. That sums up the feeling accurately. For my part I would have only changed the name of the game.

[@DEXODUS]

more conent pl0x this is the most informed summary of some of the most nunced and complex topics when starting gamedev

[@josephalfredgarcia9984]

Do you plan to create a more in-depth tutorial series on game creation using Unreal?

[@jackof4ll]

will you ever create a c++ beginner to advanced Unreal Engine Video? (Something that takes people from beginner to advanced)

[@kken8766]

would you happen to have a udemy course that I could buy on unreal-related topics? I just happen to love how you explain stuff in such detail.

[@tomtomkowski7653]

The only reason why I'm still not using UE - the lack of some user-friendly language support. Coding logic in Blueprints is a bad idea because of spaghetti and because of performance and coding in c++ is just not for me. I really wish UE has c# support or maybe some of their own Python-like language. So as for now... Unity and Godot are my choices which is quite a pity because UE looks really amazing.

[@kirkrodwood8070]

Not that it matters much, but when UE4 first came out, it wasn't free, it cost like $20 a month for access. It wasn't long before it was free though.

[@skanda2186]

This man looks like Ignis from Final Fantasy XV.

[@rustyshackleford2605]

4:35 I'm pretty sure it was 20 a month on release release, though they did make it free shortly afterwards. This was great since it made unity update their pricing to be cheaper up-front and eventually made the free version viable instead of being a severely limited demo. CryEngine, which was a serious competitor to Unreal before UE4, ended up falling by the wayside and became the Crymoar engine. For some reason they still haven't added a tear drop to the logo yet. Also, a moment of silence in memory of the Blender Game Engine.

[@IgnoreSolutions]

UBPGE for all your modern Blender game engine needs

[@MaakaSakuranbo]

RPGMaker was a thing for a long time. While made for stuff like JRPGs, you could kinda sorta make RTS and the like in it if you were knowledgeable enough.

[@khronos142]

how are you so cool?? I hope more people discover your wonderful videos

[@amigoface]

i was there .

[@lifeartstudios6207]

Someone needs to do a comparison video for vr development, especially for a standalone like oculus quest. UE4 has been a nightmare to get anything meaningful ( my opinion ) working well on quest.

[@Navhkrin]

I have seen videos with over 100K views on similar topics that are not half as good. I really hope youtube algorithm finds you worth.

[@DynamicalisBlue]

I don't recommend starting with Unity anymore. Few years ago it was great, but ever since they went public, all they seem to care about is making as much money from its developer base as possible. Instead of making actual useful features that people have wanted for years, everything they make has either been in early alpha for at least a year or is tied in to some paid service. Makes me feel that Epic is more indie dev friendly than Unity.

[@Adiazpolo]

I thought unreal engine 4 came out in 2014

[@josemendoza4946]

Look at that pinky finger at the beggining

[@rafaelkss2009]

I hate Unity 3d games, and I regret the time I wasted with Unity tutorials. But that's me, since I started to focus on UE5 I feel I'm really moving forward. AND I'm using Linux, I suffer a lot with UE. There's no discussion about: - Professional assets; - Documentation; - Framework;

[@quackcharge]

>the zune I snorted loudly

[@user-us1ms1be7b]

3:35 nintendo, HA HA HA HA!

[@gostan2718]

"or... they're cryEngine" 😂😂😂

[@mint1637]

Uhhhhhh, dad? Lmaoo

[@Strelokos666]

gamedev is so forced nowadays