So I’ve had an idea for the perfect racing game and was even for a while willing to just give it to a company and let them run with it and everything. The only problem was no one was accepting ideas and I kept getting turned away before I could even pitch my idea to them. So when I learned about Unreal Engine 4 and how it is used to make videogames and now even free I got really excited. Downside to that I’ve never made a game before and not sure how to go about starting it.
I have a few friends who are interested in helping out because they want the perfect racing game just as much as I do. My biggest question is what do I need to do to get started in building my dream racing game? I would like to have it multi-platform mainly towards console and pc. I also want to have both offline and online modes so people can enjoy the game with friends if they have subscriptions with the consoles as well as if they don’t they can still play the game and enjoy it. Is that even a possibility? I don’t play many racing games now a days due to not a lot of time and none have given me what I want.
Ciralsa,
Making a game is no small thing. I would advise you to get started on some smaller scale projects first so you can learn the basics, think of Tic Tac Toe and work your way up. Starting on something huge can really devastate your motivation. What you need is understanding of programming, physics, and logics, 3d model & animations, sounds effects, music, 2d artwork among other things. If you can find people to who allredy have those skills the better. One thing you will invest a lot is time. I’m working on my own project now for some time now in my spare time and basically it is nothing more then a walking simulator and some fancy attack animations 
But I’m getting there slowly… Learning all the skills is a lengthy process. I started out years ago with a little programming, then 2d art work and after 3d modelling and animations. Time and patience is your friend 
That’s a very general question, because there’s so much involved. Without any experience it’s going to take you a while to learn things, it’s best to start with some small goals and work up, but realize it’s going to take years.
Thank you VariableArgument and darthviper107. I will keep your advice in mind and start smaller with racing games on the phones/tablets first and work my way up. I’m working to get a computer programming degree and hoping that will help me. I have some friends who are good at programming so I will see if they can help also. I hope your game comes out soon and I have the opportunity to try it. I’ve had this dream for about 4 years now and glad I found unreal engine to hopefully see it to fruitition.
franktech if you want I can send you a demo once I get it alpha ready. I want as much feedback from videogame racing fans as possible
Take the advanced vehicle starter project and run with it, you will scrap that project 5,000 times before you get anywhere, so don’t fall in love with just one project, you will make some “progress” but then you may learn a thing or four, have a new sense of direction, or you create a system that just doesn’t get along well with other systems and decide to scrap your project and start again. At the same time your friends will be doing the same exact thing.
Don’t rely on tutorials to create content for your game, you’ll soon find that they only touch up on basics and leave you with the advanced stuff, which is fine, but for beginners this can be off putting, but when you come back to that dame tutorial a month or two down the line you’ll be able to do a lot more with it because you have memorized what certain blueprint methods/nodes do and how they can be tied in together.
Same thing goes for content in the market place, market place packages are usually designed for one type of scene or project and unless the publisher has released more content in the same style your scene will look mixed and matched (i.e using stylized materials with standard materials).
One with I wish wasn’t true is that there is no such thing as an idea’s guy, when you are a game developer as a animator/designer/Artist you are working to a design document set out by the publisher/studio execs, you are also sitting in an office full of ideas guys.
Be prepared to become an octopus, because you are working on a fully fledged game you are working with many systems of development, from animation, texturing, building props, creating effects, writng code, using blueprints, managing budgets/teams.
Learn to use tools like worldmachine, Substance tools, adobe suite, AutoDesk and systems provided by epic. it may take you a month to learn the full set of tools by Allegorithmic and another 6 to become proficient with them.
Assets can be found everywhere, learn to google, you may think you know google, but you don’t, no one really does… Changing search criteria like location/time published and changing a few keywords can bring up some result you would not find otherwise. Using unfiltered search engines is another good way to find those low-key blog/forum posts that were flushed down by other popular sites.
Don’t worry about creating your game, keep it in the back of your mind, until you go to your grave, or you are still in the Dev scene a year down the line 
*I have only been using unreal for 3 months, but I had the same optimism you do 