One of my best friends learned Unreal as his first game engine. You dont have to use c++, there’s blueprints, which are honestly quiet easy to use bcz it’s visual scripting. But, im also not suggesting newbies learn unreal as their first language, so I don’t know why you even brought it up. I mentioned Unreal bcz that’s what I’ve been using the last 3ish years. OP asked for a recommendation as an alternative, and I didn’t have one bcz I haven’t used Godot since the Beta 4 came out about a year ago.