Real Estate Battle Royale: How Gaming Engines Are Powering Tech Innovation In AEC

Entertainment technology is changing the game for the real estate sector, turning a once stagnant landscape into a battleground of digital innovation. Although the overlap between the video game and AEC industries may not seem obvious, gaming engines like Unreal Engine and Unity are levelling up immersive 3D visualizations, enabling everything from photorealistic showrooms to smart city simulations. The October 10^th release of Battlefield 6 is further blurring the line, with its hyper-realistic demolition simulations mirroring real-world structural mechanics to rival the most advanced purpose-built digital twin and visualization platforms. Unlike the hype of buying virtual penthouses in the metaverse, this crossover has tangible applications, with legacy tools going head-to-head with the technology behind Fortnite and Assassin’s Creed to optimize real-world processes.

Gaming engines are smashing through the limitations of slow-to-render BIM tools. With integrations becoming faster and more affordable, real estate professionals can access the technology directly from their own computers. Real-world deployments so far have seen Mott MacDonald’s IDEA software leverage a gaming engine to simulate urban crowds and optimize space utilization at concept stage, while the city of Helsinki turned to Unreal Engine to power its digital twin. VR and AR technology, first popularized in gaming, allow AEC professionals and end users to step inside hyper-realistic digital twins to undertake safety inspections, immersive training and design reviews to identify issues long before construction begins. These virtual mock-ups facilitate effective QA/QC processes, reduced material waste and faster construction of prefabricated building elements.

Gaming technology is also shaking up the world of marketing. For instance, the Unreal Engine is helping to boost real estate pre-sales through immersive property tours, master planning visualizations and construction animations that enhance investor presentations. The ability to render real-time design changes, support interactive mock-ups and integrate client feedback early in design presents key advantages over traditional tools. Autodesk 3ds Max stands out as a bridge between gaming visuals and practical real estate use cases, allowing architects and developers to create detailed renderings and animations.

The convergence is bidirectional, with gaming technology vendors increasingly breaking into the real estate sector. Unity’s integration with Autodesk streamlines BIM-to-game-engine workflows, while Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Unity featured a high-fidelity 3D model of Notre-Dame Cathedral, rumoured to have supported post-fire restoration efforts. Furthermore, Epic Games’s collaboration with Bentley Systems to embed Unreal Engine into the iTwin Platform digital twin offering signals vendors’ growing recognition of the digital white space, with some providers carving out dedicated real estate business units.

Looking ahead, AEC’s digital future is expanding beyond static visualizations thanks to gaming engines, AI and machine learning. Gaming engines may underpin smart city planning, traffic simulations, crowd behaviour and disaster response within virtual cityscapes. The intersection of gaming technology and robotics continues to grow, promising automation of dangerous construction tasks to alleviate labour shortages. With emerging developments, real estate planning may soon start to feel less like wrangling spreadsheets and more like playing The Sims.

For further insight into the trajectory of real estate technologies, including digital twins and other software for AEC, please see Verdantix Tech Roadmap: Real Estate And Facilities Software (2025).