I'm an old school writer. I've been writing large manuscripts for 22 years.

My background is poetry, tabletop game design, young adult novels and screenwriting.

I'm learning python, construct 2, gazebo sim, Adobe InDesign, and Game Maker Studio.

I have an idea for a game I want to build, basically a mod. It will be my first finished game.

It's built over a skeleton of a third-person shooter, but it's actually part 3d adventure game (3rd person) and part streets of rage style brawler. But it's story-driven and I have a unique creepy action/drama type story that I'm writing for it.

I want to use unreal engine.

Can this be done in unreal engine without learning c++?

Am I using the write SDK/engine?

I want to build the game by modding, before I build a complete game using smaller engines and from scratch programming.

gazebo sim I chose because I'd also like to build simulations of theoretical electronic products - but that's for later.

If not unreal engine which is the tool that I've heard most about with a ton of books for me to study on it.

Then what other tool would be good for modding to build a 3dperson shooter framework and adapt it to do what I want? Which is a 3D adventure/brawler in two different modes in the style of a third person shooter like metal gear solid or syphon filter 1.

Unreal Engine 4 is probably the most capable 3D engine to get stuff going without programming due to the Blueprint visual scripting. UE4 does have simple 3rd person examples and first person shooter examples for free, I would definitely take a look into that. The closest game that matches your idea is Skyrim, which can be modded.

Thanks, that's really helpful.