Project Anarchy vs Unity 3D. A comparison of two modern game engines.

Project Anarchy (PA) - new free desktop and mobile game engine from Havok. In this article I’ll try to compare Project Anarchy and Unity 3D Engine and find out main advantages and disadvantages of these two engines.

Author: Sergey Taraban

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Licensing

Project Anarchy includes two standard licence versions: Project Anarchy Free and Project Anarchy Pro. Up to this moment Project Anarchy have not clear pricing information about Project Anarchy Pro. You need to write email to support for detailed information.

Unity3D	Project Anarchy
Unity (price: free) For desktop, web and mobile distribution	Project Anarchy (price: free) For mobile distribution only.
	Project Anarchy PC Exporter (price: 499$) PC distribution extension of Project Anarchy free version.
Unity Pro (price: 1500$ or subscription $75/month) + additional per-platform packs (price: 1500$ or subscription $75/month and Windows Mobile free) For desktop, web, mobile and console distribution	Project Anarchy Pro (price: unknown) For mobile, desktop and console distribution.

Distribution platforms

Platform	Unity 3D (v. 4.2)	Project Anarchy (v2013.2)
Widows Desktop	yes	yes (pro)
Mac OS	yes	yes (pro)
Linux (Ubuntu)	yes	no
Web	yes	no
iOS	yes	yes
Android ARM7	yes	yes
Android x86	no (announced)	yes
Tizen	no (announced)	yes
Windows Phone 8	yes	yes (pro)
Blackberry	yes	no (announced)
Consoles (ps3/xbox/wii/psvita)	yes (pro)	yes (pro)

(pro) - only in Pro version

Programming languages

Project Anarchy uses C++ for native developing and Lua for scripting in editor. Unity uses Mono platform and supported C#, JavaScript# and Boo. You can right native code plugins for both of them.

Development platforms

Platform where engine development tools works.

Platform	Unity3D (v. 4.2)	Project Anarchy (v2013.2)
Widows Desktop	yes	yes
Mac OS	yes	yes*
Linux (Ubuntu)	yes (using wine)**	no

* - limited edition. build only. Development tools (vForge editor, exporter plugins, model viewer) not supported.

** - has some bugs and limitation

Version features comparison

Comparison between version of this engines. Project Anarchy has a lot of features disabled or missing in Unity.

Feature	Unity3D Free (v. 4.2)	Project Anarchy Free (v2013.2)	Unity3D Pro (v. 4.2)	Project Anarchy Pro (v2013.2)
Custom Splash Screen	no	no	yes	yes
Modern UI system	no (announced)	yes (Scaleform)	no (announced)	yes (Scaleform)
LOD support	no	yes	yes	yes
Render pipeline low-level access	yes	yes	yes	yes
GPU Skinning	no	no	yes	no
Render-to-Texture Effects	no	yes	yes	yes
Real-time shadows	no	yes	yes	yes
AI System	no	yes	no	yes
Destruction System	no	no	no	yes
Cloth Physic	yes	no	yes	yes
Native Code Plugins Support	yes**	yes	yes	yes
Profiler and GPU profiling	no	yes	yes	yes
FBX importer	yes	yes*	yes	yes*

* - not fully supported ** - only for mobile

Conclusions

For now Project Anarchy is not a competitor for Unity engine for game development. In some cases it may be a better solution then Unity in mobile development. But for web and desktop development Unity is better solution now. Advantage of Project Anarchy is Scaleform GUI System, additional graphic features and a bit more powerful physic system.

Project Anarchy is more complicated, not so flexible and not so easy to use like Unity. It has not Unit Store like service with a lot of extensions and assets. Also Project Anarchy is huge dependence from a Windows platform. All its development tools use Windows technologies. Unity has more cross platform architecture. Price for Project Anarchy Pro version is unknown now.