Code a First-Person Adventure Game Set Up documentation bug

Development Getting Started & Setup
, ,
1

Documentation issue: C++ Quick Start omits the Visual Studio solution

configuration, causing a silent no-op build

Page: Setting Up a C++ Project / “Set Up and Compile a C++ Project in Unreal Engine”

Environment

  • Unreal Engine 5.8 (++UE5+Release-5.8-CL-56057345), Launcher-installed binary build
  • Visual Studio Community 2026, 18.8.2
  • Windows 10 Pro 19045

Summary

The tutorial instructs the reader to build from Visual Studio but never mentions the
Solution Configuration dropdown. If that dropdown is not set to “Development Editor”,
the build succeeds, produces no error or warning, and the editor silently continues to
run the previously compiled module. The tutorial’s final step — the “Hello World”
on-screen message — then never appears, with no diagnostic available to the reader.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Create a new C++ project from a template.
  2. Follow the tutorial through adding the StartPlay() override to the game mode class.
  3. In Visual Studio, leave the Solution Configuration dropdown at its default.
  4. Solution Explorer > Games > right-click the project > Build, as the page instructs.
  5. Return to the already-open editor and press Play.

Expected: the yellow “Hello World” debug message appears for 5 seconds.

Actual: nothing appears. The accompanying UE_LOG is also absent from the log,
confirming the override is not present in the loaded binary. The build reported success.

Cause

The build went to the DebugGame Editor configuration, which writes to a separate,
decorated binary:

Development Editor  ->  UnrealEditor-<Project>.dll                  (undecorated)
DebugGame Editor    ->  UnrealEditor-<Project>-Win64-DebugGame.dll  (decorated)

UnrealEditor.exe — what the Launcher and the .uproject file association both launch —
only ever loads the undecorated Development build. The DebugGame DLL compiled
correctly; it is simply never loaded. Because both configurations have independent
binaries, .modules manifests, .target files and Intermediate object directories, they
coexist without conflict and nothing signals the mismatch.

Note the failure is invisible from the reader’s side: the compiler succeeds, the editor
starts normally, and the correct GameMode is confirmed in the log
(“LogLoad: Game class is ‘BP_GameMode_C’”). Only the absence of output
indicates a problem.

1 Like