# GameEngineBench: Evaluating Coding Agents on Real C++ Runtime Environments

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.03525 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.03525/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Software engineering coding agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 9 of its 14 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 3 Jul 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Software engineering coding agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/software-engineering-coding-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Judging LLM-as-a-Judge with MT-Bench and Chatbot Arena](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05685/) (2023)
- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [Program Synthesis with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.07732/) (2021)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [Terminal-Bench: Benchmarking Agents on Hard, Realistic Tasks in Command Line Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.11868/) (2026)
- [SWE-rebench: An Automated Pipeline for Task Collection and Decontaminated Evaluation of Software Engineering Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20411/) (2025)
- [GameDevBench: Evaluating Agentic Capabilities Through Game Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.11103/) (2026)
- [AutoUE: Automated Generation of 3D Games in Unreal Engine via Multi-Agent Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.07106/) (2026)
- [Visualising Game Engine Subsystem Coupling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.06329/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [GameXpert-Bench: How Far Are Coding Agents from Expert Game Development?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.21833/) (2026)
- [AI for Games in the Foundation Model Era](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16679/) (2026)
- [GameLogicBench: Evaluating Coding Agents on Runtime Game Logic with Tick-Level State Assertions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.21562/) (2026)
- [GameASG-Bench: Benchmarking Autonomous Software Generation for Game Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.21293/) (2026)
- [GameReplica: A Benchmark for Black-Box Visual Game Replication by Vision-Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.22308/) (2026)
- [CraftBench-UE: Deterministic Evaluation for Coding Agents in Unreal Engine](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.23142/) (2026)
- [SWE-Game: Can Coding Agents Build the Games We Want?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33678/) (2026)
- [A2Z GameSpec-Bench: How Faithfully Can Coding Agents Generate Games from Game Design Specifications?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39564/) (2026)
- [ProgramGym: Scaling Training Environments for Long-Horizon Program Reproduction Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.13395/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Game engines provide real-time simulation, rendering, physics, interaction, networking, and asset pipelines, making them valuable not only for games but also for 3D applications in healthcare, robotics, architecture, manufacturing, and related domains. Because game development is where these systems are most mature and publicly available, it offers a practical testbed for evaluating coding agents that must modify C++ code within stateful, interactive, real-time systems. We present GameEngineBench, a benchmark for evaluating coding agents on scoped C++ implementation tasks inside Unreal Engine 5 projects, built from nine real-world game repositories. The evaluation set consists of 110 tasks spanning gameplay mechanics, multiplayer behavior, AI and world orchestration, animation and movement, UI and session code, loading behavior, online-service integration, persistence, data serialization, XR behavior, and rendering-oriented plugins. These tasks require models to make native C++ changes that compile and satisfy behavioral tests within executable Unreal Engine projects. Across twelve evaluated configurations, the strongest model reaches 55.5% pass@1, while 31 tasks remain unsolved by every configuration. Our results demonstrate that frontier coding agents continue to struggle with deeply integrated C++ development for real-time interactive software, highlighting game-engine benchmarks as a valuable complement to existing software engineering evaluations.