# Visualising Game Engine Subsystem Coupling

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.06329 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06329/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 12 Sep 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [GameEngineBench: Evaluating Coding Agents on Real C++ Runtime Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.03525/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Game engines support video game development by providing functionalities such as graphics rendering or input/output device management. However, their architectures are often overlooked, which hinders their integration and extension. In this paper, we use an approach for architecture recovery to create architectural models for 10 open-source game engines. We use these models to answer the following questions: Which subsystems more often couple with one another? Do game engines share subsystem coupling patterns? We observe that the Low-Level Renderer, Platform Independence Layer and Resource Manager are frequently coupled to the game engine Core. By identifying the most frequent coupling patterns, we describe an emergent game engine architecture and discuss how it can be used by practitioners to improve system understanding and maintainability.