Support at least one modern programming language like Rust, Swift or create a scripting language

General Feedback & Requests
1

My following statements may sound offensive about C++ but please read on.

C++ has been and will be a language that provides the programmer the total flexibility to do anything, that too with Unreal Engine it has been an integral part of it. But for new programmers the syntax, standard library, templates etc. seem quite complex.

For many programmers who have not developed any games, the game programming becomes even bigger challenge with C++.

As a game programmer who is currently working with Unity, I too am finding it difficult, writing code in C++. I also believe that people who want to develop games or do something innovative have to have to go through the challenge of learning C++ which is IMO, has complex syntax when compared to Rust or C# or any other modern programming language.

So, I am requesting Unreal team to do something unreal and that should be to create a new scripting language that is easy to learn for newcomers, switchers like me. I also welcome to support any modern programming language that is already popular and is easy to learn. Personally, I do not prefer visual scripting in my projects.

Another reason I posted this request is that I want to know what UE team is planning when it comes to game programming in UE. I also think there should at least one alternative to C++ (Rust as per several developers’ opinion) that is more easy.

All I want to do with game progarmming is to **spend more time in writing game logic **and not mastering the language itself.

Bonus story:

As Unreal Engine is now fully free and it only takes about 5% royalty of gaming money that too after $1 million earnings encourages several developers, that are working in both gaming and non-gaming domains. I am a game programmer and app developer. I currently develop games using Unity 3D. But due to the engine updates and a lot of other silly issues with it, we as a company wanted to switch to a more mature engine and we came across Unreal Engine. Even though we have resources that are capable of developing games, our team found extremely difficult in learning and understanding C++ code. Of course, nobody can expect one to become an expert in a month but switching from C# to C++ is not an easy job.

What we have done as of now is to split the team into two one that works with Unity (75% of current developers) and other starts learning Unreal Engine.

2

This topic has been done so many times and always lands on the same conclusion tbh. Throwing my opinion in anyway:

C++ is always going to be the low-level language in UE, the engine is written in it - so that won’t change. You would also have to accept that any official intermediatte language would need to be treated by Epic the same way Blueprint is - as a first-class fully endorsed and supported feature of the engine. That’s a big ask, and it would also throw a significantly large spanner into the very tried-and-tested C++/Blueprint ecosystem we already have.

Another concern of mine is that it would also serve to fragment the development community. Developers almost always choose to sit in the camp of either Blueprint or C++, and communication between those two communities is pretty lax. There’s also a strange subset of C++ programmers that refuse to use BP in any capacity (stupid), which doesn’t help.

A real issue IMO is that the expectations of non-UE users are nearly always completely off base from the beginning. Unity devs often come to UE4 expecting C++ to be the equivalent of C# in Unity - but that couldn’t be further from the truth. If you were working with C++ and Unity source code, that might be a more worthy comparison. You’d be amazed how many people are still surprised that they should expect to close and reopen the editor often when writing code, or creating classes for example.

This idea isn’t helped by the tools that currently exist which try to mimic C#-like iteration time in a C++ environment. Hot Reload hasn’t been stable for several major engine releases at this point, and nearly everybody will be told to avoid it. Live Coding is great, but has natural limitations that still don’t make it “good enough” for some.

Slight sidenote: One thing that really rustles my jimmies is popular YouTube videos titled “why I chose Unity over UE4” - which always feature a “UE4 just crashes when using C++” segment. It is always their own fault, but again, it’s an issue caused by silly expectations and poor research. /rant

I understand where it comes from. I’ve been a longtime UE user, and hadn’t written a line of code in my life before UE4. I’m a senior now - but put me in Unity and I wouldn’t (and can’t, I’ve tried) make a ball roll forwards. There is virtually no direct transfer of knowledge or API’s between the two engines, just transfer of the theory behind it all. Unity and Unreal are both game engines, but IMO that’s where the comparison pretty much ends.

Blueprint is UE’s equivalent of C# in Unity, but unfortuantely it still only has a visual node graph editor. That IMO is what Epic needs to address, and I’m banking on them introducing such a solution in UE5, perhaps in the form of a text-based scripting tool that works within/in tandem with Blueprint. I even suggested such a tool a few years ago.

The C++/Blueprint ecosystem is a huge strongpoint of the toolset. To be honest, C++ really isn’t that difficult either - Unreal makes it very easy for you, it’s just a huge codebase that requires time and dedication to learn and get proficient with. Adding another language is unlikely to create any shortcuts IMO, and likely benefits a very tiny percentage of potential users at the expense of time spent on existing tools.

Just this guys opinion anyways.

3

I’d say that if Epic doesn’t add to UE5 a new scripting language maybe based on the SkookumScript they bought, at the very least they could add the official non-visual BluePrint text scripting version, which already is there when you copy/paste any BP element in the clipboard but it really isn’t human readable and hard to edit that way. So making BP text scripting version human readable and officially supported would at least help anyone that doesn’t want to waste months with ugly visual spaghetti code without having to go the C++ route or no other options to code anything more than average complexity algorithms.

5

I think it’s safe to say that epic will never in a million years implement Swift.

You might want to remove that from your suggestions given current events. :slight_smile:

6

I am a game art teacher. After teaching, I want to develop independent games. Then I studied C + + and read the book c + + primer pro. At present, I am reading the new standards of C + + 11 standard, such as lambda. However, in my opinion, the C + + of UE4 looks completely different from that of standard C + +. It has a large number of macro parameters, which also requires us to use the functions written by UE4. The < > parameters of many template classes and template functions are difficult to understand. We can’t write classes and functions in the C-type style. Of course, because I’m still a beginner in C + +, I’m not as flexible as epic programmers. Therefore, many source codes of UE4, especially template classes, are difficult to understand and use flexibly. I found that almost none of the code I saw in C + + primer Pro can be used in UE4. This is the most difficult thing for me to use UEC + +.

And for most people, mastering and mastering a programming language is a waste of energy, so I don’t want to learn C ා or other languages, especially when I haven’t fully understood C + +. Programmers from unity may have the same idea. The problem is, UE4 doesn’t solve all the problems of game development. For example, you need to use PHP to access the database, you can’t use the blueprint function to implement a proprietary server, and so on. These problems are not problems for large enterprises. For example, many enterprises have their own C + + servers, but for personal developers like me, there is almost no way to develop an online game. In China, where I live, if we develop single player games, the only result is that pirates make money.