Moderns games are made using special programs called game engines. Some of the most popular ones are Unreal Engine 4, Unity, Frostbite, Amazon’s LumberYard, and so on. But some companies prefer to use their own video game engines which are built in-house. The Sims 4 is one of those games.
What engine is Sims 4 built on?
EA and Maxis developed their own custom game engine for The Sims 4. The game engine was built from scratch with The Sims 4 in mind. Unfortunately, this game engine doesn’t have an official name. But since it’s used exclusively for developing The Sims 4, we can safely call it “The Sims 4 game engine“.
Does Sims 4 use Unreal engine?
The Sims 4 doesn’t use the Unreal game engine unlike many of the modern video games out there. EA and Maxis preferred to do things differently and develop their very own game engine for The Sims series. All the games from The Sims franchise have been built using a custom game engine.
But many Sims fans believe things could soon change.
Sims 5 and Unreal Engine
Rumours have it that Unreal Engine might power the next Sims game. EA and Maxis have remained tight-lipped on this matter and have yet to confirm what game engine they’re using to develop The Sims 5. Using Unreal Engine to make The Sims 5 is one of the top requests on players’ wish list.
There’s no doubt that Unreal Engine 4 can take The Sims in a direction that it’s never gone before. This could mean excellent detailing, sharper lines, top-notch game play animation, and more.
Unreal Engine 4 is an advanced game engine, but there’s no way one can predict how the game is going to look like. There are plenty of new games out there using Unreal Engine that have graphics from the 80’s.
Sharing the profit
On the other hand, many people think that it’s very unlikely The Sims 5 will be running on Unreal Engine. They don’t think EA and Maxis are willing to share the profit with Epic Games. As a quick reminder, Unreal Engine is free to use until you make more than 1 million USD. Once that threshold has been reach, EA and Maxis would have to to pay 5% royalties over their earnings to Epic Games.
The Sims 4 series already crossed 2 billion in lifetime revenue. If EA and Maxis had used Unreal Engine from the very beginning, they would have had to pay 100 million USD to Epic Games.
And there’s also another question: does The Sims actually need all the features and options that Unreal Engine has to offer?
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