We call Development Environment or "Integrated Development Environment" (IDE from now on) to a special software that helps developers build software. Basic IDE include and editor, a compiler and a debugger, although today's IDE feature several other helper tools. As types of software become so different, so does IDEs. Therefore there's a broad range of IDEs targeting software development in different fields. IDEs to develop games are one of the most specialized out there, with many peculiarities. A central element in any software development is the language used. Some IDE are designed around a certain language, while others can be configured to use several compilers or languages.

Game Development IDEs have several special features, but two are of great importance. The first one is the integration of multiple tools to produce different parts of a game (graphics, programming, sounds, networking , etc), and the second big feature is the specialization in game development, where most elements of a game are prebuilt (levels, maps, characters, animations,etc.).

An IDE to create games has to allow the developer to program different parts of the game which have different purposes. To suit different requirements, The environment can allow the developer to use different languages. For example, an online first person shooter developer needs to make heavy use of 3D programming but also take on the communication with a remote server through the network. We might need totally different languages for these two requirements. Additionally, the game may have rules about what is allowed or forbidden to the player, or the checkpoints that the user needs to visit. This requirement usually needs some high level language where rules can be easily written. Consider also that the game can have bots, i.e. computer players that autonomously play the game.  How would we program the intelligence and behaviour of these bots?

Many Environments include their own language trying to suit every requirement while keeping it simple in an attempt to make it easy to use the environment, while others allow for general languages (typically C++) to be the driving language in the environment. The latter ones don't restrict the use of other languages though, because there are tools and ways to embed routines and code done in non C++ into a C++ program. But even general languages like C++, rust, python or Lua, which are used in game development, are extended with a set of classes and library functions that are tightly embedded into the game engine.