There are a plethora of game engines available; many of them are free, some are open source, and others are proprietary. Selecting the right game engine for your game project is a critical pre-development step. Not every game engine will work for your game, and no single game engine will work for every game. Fortunately, we have a lot of options available to us.
When deciding on which game engine to use for a given game project, consider the typical characterization of games in the primary genre that your game is a part of.
We use the phrase primary genre because many modern games blur the genre lines and incorporate characteristics of two or more genres. This genre blurring can result in new and innovative games.