Every game runs on an engine: the renderer, physics, audio, scripting and tools that turn code and assets into something playable. Studios have built their own engines to push their games forward, and those engines have shaped whole genres. The early first-person shooter grew out of id Tech, grand strategy runs on Clausewitz, and open-world action games run on Anvil. If you know how engines work, you understand how games are made.
MYCPLUS has covered game development since 2004, and this section is built around in-depth game engine profiles. They cover the in-house engines of the biggest studios, the open-source C++ engines you can download and build today, and the classic and discontinued engines that came before them. Each profile covers how the engine works, the version history, a checked list of the games built on it, and where it stands in 2026, including what to use when an engine is no longer available.
Alongside the profiles you’ll find guides to choosing an engine and a language, graphics programming with DirectX, and complete C++ game projects with tested source code. Whether you’re picking a toolset for your first game, studying engine source code or researching the technology behind a game you love, start here.
Why MYCPLUS: One of the web’s largest collections of game engine profiles, maintained since 2004. Every profile checks its game list against named sources, corrects the myths copied elsewhere, and states each engine’s status in 2026. For the language behind most of these engines, see the C++ Programming tutorials.
Antiryad Gx is a unified cross-platform and multi-core 2D and 3D game engine developed by Arkham Development, a French company near Paris specializing in game services and real-time 2D and 3D solutions. The engine’s development began in 1992 and has since evolved to rival and even surpass many commercial game engines in terms of features, optimization, and stability.
Delta3D is an open-source multi-platform game development engine. Written in C++, the engine is available to users under the license of LGPL (Lesser General Public License). Community-supported, Delta3D is widely prevalent among developers around the globe. The engine is used for multipurpose including training, education, visualization, and of course entertainment.
The word Esenthel is made by combining two words i.e. Essential and Essence. It is an open source game engine for developing commercial and noncommercial games (it is not Free, there are some limitations, i.e. its code cannot be used to create/improve other game engines.). It is written in C++ and is very easy to use. It uses very clean APIs. It is in development since 2000.
Exult is a FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) game Engine. It is written in C++ and runs on Mac, Windows and Linux. Exult was developed in 2004 to recreate a massive hit game of 1990’s called Ultima VII. It is created for the revival of Ultima VII (The Black Gate) and Ultima VII part2 (Serpent Isle) on modern PCs.
G3D Innovation Engine is a fully featured, cross platform game engine. This is a 3D engine written in C/C++. It is a commercial-grade, open source engine for different platforms i.e. Windows, Linus and Mac OS. The engine is licensed under BSD-2 license and mainly used for teaching purpose.
Anura Game Engine is an open-source, C++-based game engine designed primarily for creating 2D games. It is known for its flexibility, ease of
The Aurora Engine was developed by BioWare using Borland C++ Builder. It is the successor of the Infinity Engine. This game engine
Buildbox is a C++ game development platform founded by Trey Smith in August 2014. The goal of this NO-Code platform to make a path for anybody to have the option to make computer games without coding. This C++ platform attracts the majority of business visionaries, designers and other gaming fans without earlier game development advancements or coding information.
Blender is a free and open-source 3D graphics production suite. It is primarily suitable for making interactive real-time content. This amazing game engine is purely written in C/C++ from scratch.
Blend4Web is an open source 3D graphic software framework. The main advantage of the framework is that it works right within the browser without installing any third party plugins. It can render both graphics as well as audio inside the browser window.
Lumberyard is a free, cross-platform 3D game engine developed by Amazon Game Tech. It is based upon Crytek’s Cryengine. This AAA game engine is written in C++ and Lua. Lumberyard develops games for the PC, Mobiles and consoles i.e., Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The most prominent feature of the engine is its integration with AWS (Amazon Web Services) and Twitch. Lumberyard is designed for performance, modularity, and productivity.
Gameplay 3D is a Cross-platform game engine used to develop 2D and 3D games. Written in C++, this is used to develop games for Windows, Android, Linux, Blackberry, iOS and MacOSX. The game engine supports Visual Studio, Xcode, CMake, Qt Creator and Android NDK platforms to develop and build the platform.
