Wouldn’t it be cool to know which game engine your favorite game was developed with? I thought so. I decided to break down some of the more popular game engines and list the games that are using the engine for all of you uber geeks out there.  Some of the list will include certain toolsets or plugins used for specific things like the physics within a game.  (think ragdoll)  What may surprise some of you is that more than a few of your favorite games use the same development engine.

I suppose in the world of making video games it’s really difficult to design and produce a unique engine for your game so what most developers do is modify an existing engine.  There’s a lot of sloppy seconds, thirds and fourths going on in the industry it seems.  I say this because you’ll often find that a game uses variations of multiple engines at times so it’s not unlikely to see a game listed twice in the below list of game engines.

Ready to find out which engine your favorite game uses?

Unreal Engine

This is perhaps the most popular engine being used in today’s games.  Developed by Epic Games it should come as no surprise that the Unreal franchise including Unreal Championship and Unreal Tournament are naturally using it as well as their latest franchise, Gears of War.  In fact, Gears of War 2 will be using the new Unreal Engine 3 and after seeing the tech demo of what it can do, we’re all in for a treat.

Others that have used it in some form include Army of Two, Turok, BioShock, Mass Effect, many of Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy games, DICE’s Mirror’s Edge, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway, Frontlines: Fuels of War and many, many more.  Even the highly publicized Unreal Engine 3 dispute by Silicon Knights hasn’t stopped them from completely ditching it from Too Human.  There are too many games to list that have used the Unreal Engine as the basis for their game.  It’s “unreal” actually. 

Frosbite Engine

DICE developed the Frostbite Engine specifically for use on the upcoming Battlefield: Bad Company.  I must say that it looks and performs in a most impressive fashion.  I loved what I saw of it at the Bad Company Community Day event with DICE.  You can destroy just about everything with the Frostbite technology which is one of its main features.  I don’t think DICE will be licensing this engine out to outside developers so plan on it being exclusive to the Battlefield series and EA for a while.

The best thing about it though is that it has a kick ass logo.  I mean seriously.  The logo for Frostbite is pretty freakin’ cool.

Doom 3 Engine (id Tech)

This little puppy is obviously id Software’s little monster used in its DOOM and Quake franchises.  I don’t know of any recent games beyond id Software’s own titles that are using this engine.  Prey was the most current game that has used the Doom 3 Engine.  I’m sure the recently announced DOOM 4 will be using it or some upgraded version of it.

Euphoria

The hype surrounding NaturalMotion’s Euphoria only recently came to light.  There’s a good reason for it especially considering the fact that the $500 million dollar monster, Grand Theft Auto IV, uses it.  Rockstar Games has said that future titles will also use Euphoria.  It builds on the usual ragdoll physics that gamers are used to seeing.  It’s quite a step above them actually according to the latest Euphoria video.

LucasArts plans to use Euphoria in their next Indiana Jones game and they’re also using it in this year’s Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.  It should be exciting to see it at work in The Force Unleashed!  If you don’t remember, it’s also being used in NaturalMotion’s own little football title, Backbreaker.  I suspect that we’ll see quite a few more of our favorite games using Euphoria in the coming years.

Lithtech Jupiter EX

This is what I like to call the scariest engine alive because of its creator, Monolith Productions.  You might recall the name after playing titles like F.E.A.R. and Condemned.  It’s been used on practically all of the F.E.A.R. games (including Project Origin) as well as both Condemned: Criminal Origins and Condemned 2: Bloodshot.  Some engines just like to scare the crap out of you and I guess this is the one.

RenderWare

This is another very popular rendering engine used by developers.  The boys and girls of Criterion are behind it so there’s no surprise that the Burnout series uses this engine.  Burnout Paradise turned out quite well so I suppose it’s a pretty decent tool to develop with.  One of my favorite Xbox 360 titles, Crackdown, was developed with it also.

There are a host of other titles that used RenderWare from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas to Manhunt 2 to Blitz: The League.  I can’t name them all because there are literally dozens of titles that have used this engine.  I just wanted to give you a few that you might recognize.

Havok

You would literally have a collection of all your most recently played games if I were to list all of the games that have used Havok in some form.  Halo 3, Half-Life 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, BioShock, Heavenly Sword, Guitar Hero III, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, Saint’s Row, TimeShift and on and on and on.  In fact, just take a look at the listed titles that have used Havok.

In-House Engines

There are a few games being developed with in-house engines that I figured I’d group in here.  Alan Wake for instance is supposedly being developed with its own engine that some call “The Alan Wake Engine”.  Yes, that’s pretty cheesy but it’s true.  Radical Entertainment’s Prototype is using their own Titanium Engine.  Eden Studios decided to develop their own engine called Twilight 2 for Alone in the Dark and it looks like that will prove a wise choice.  Dark Sector uses Digital Extremes’ Evolution Engine.  The Outfit uses Relic Entertainment’s own Essence Engine.  I could go on but I’m fresh out of brain cells.

I’m sure these engines were born from existing engines but they have cool names so I thought I’d separate them. 

Well that’s it boys and girls.  I might run a second part to this at some point but for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed looking into some of the more popular game engines out there.  Peace, love and hair grease!