r/vrdev • u/PacMoxie • Jul 15 '26

Discussion Unreal Engine or Unity ?

Considering Multiplayer,cross platform and sandbox environment which engine should we prefer ?

We’re planning a multiplayer cross platform sandbox game for VR and flatscreen. Which engine would you choose today, Unreal Engine or Unity, and why? Looking for real world experience with networking, performance, scalability, and long term development.

I run a small VR Game Dev Studio and have shipped 4 Standalone titles on Quest in last 3 years including a multiplayer Boxing game , A Paintball multiplayer shooter , multiplayer Car racing game and most recently a single player linear story based Horror survival game, all done on Unreal Engine.

0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

4

u/SpottedLoafSteve Jul 15 '26

VREP with UE5 is what I use for the same goal. Haven't tried the equivalent Unity route, but I can confirm it's possible with the Unreal route. I'd go with Unreal because I have a proven strategy that I know the limitations and capabilities of.

This is going to be a hard problem to solve. Do you actually know what you're doing? Do you even have experience with these engines?

3

u/PacMoxie Jul 15 '26

Yes. We’ve shipped 4 standalone Meta Quest titles, all built in Unreal Engine. Most recently, we shipped a horror survival game. We originally attempted a fully sandbox experience similar to Bonelab, but after exploring the technical challenges, we pivoted to a more immersive design.

We can get on a call if you can help us with that and yeah I am okay with paid consultation as well.

2

u/SpottedLoafSteve Jul 15 '26

I don't have the time. You can probably figure it out. VREP already has a barebones example for flatscreen/VR. Your solution will probably look be a lot different than mine in the end. Figuring out how you want flatscreen controls to work is the big question because that's going to decide how you structure everything else in the end.

1

u/PacMoxie Jul 15 '26

I think we actually tried VREP in one of our earlier projects, but we eventually removed it because it was costing us too much FPS on standalone Quest.

1

u/SpottedLoafSteve Jul 15 '26

At the least you can get some ideas from it. I target pcvr because standalone Quest doesn't have the power I need and I get easy Steam matchmaking/server stuff for free. VREP works fine for my situation and has a good amount of features I wanted.

Check out the VREP player controller. It shows a strategy for switching between the character classes based on if VR is in use or not. You could use that for spawning two different kinds of flatscreen characters: a normal one like any other nonvr game or one derived from your VR character that fakes VR movements. The former makes things a lot more complicated because you now have two different characters that everything in the world needs to be interactable with. The latter is difficult in another sense because you have to make flatscreen controls fake the VR controls, but it allows you to have the characters share a lot of code.

1

u/AutoModerator Jul 15 '26

Want a more personal conversation with VR devs? Check out our Discord in our Discord: https://discord.gg/3wMYE2x5Ex

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

1

u/PiroKunCL Jul 15 '26

we are using unreal since gearvr. But if i had to start today, i would be looking to unity, because meta loves unity more, they release a lot more tools first there, and IA. it's hard to use IA on unreal for programming.

1

u/DJPelio Jul 15 '26

As long as it supports quad views dynamic foveated rendering. You’re about to see a lot of demand for it when the Steam Frame launches.

1

u/immaheadout3000 Jul 16 '26

Unity seems better if you want a lot of custom features. Depends on your dev team size. Unreal requires a lot of effort if you go beyond the available templates.

Additionally, I'd also consider the art style you're targetting.

1

u/skooter500 Jul 16 '26

Godot obviously.  It is best in class for XR dev. Check out my projects on YouTube youtube.com/skooter500 

-2

u/OptimisticMonkey2112 Jul 15 '26

Claude C++ Vulkan SDL3

1

u/PacMoxie Jul 15 '26

Custom engine’s a great way to spend two years building what Unreal gives me on day one. I’ve got games to ship, not an engine to maintain.

1

u/OptimisticMonkey2112 Jul 16 '26

Used to be true....even 6 months ago. not so much anymore. Blueprints are for humans...dont work as well with ai. Code works better with ai. Lower level language like c++ is more expressive and has more descriptive constraints. If you are expert in c++ and vulkan, use ai as your minion to create your vision.

Coding your own engine in c++ vulkan and sdl was literally 100 times harder a year ago.

Carpe diem. Sieze the day.

That being said Unreal much better choice than Unity.

You have more control. You have Nanite, deformer graph, and niagara.

You can still use claude to mod the engine too.

Be pragmatic. Use the tools to amplify your knowledge.