IANAPGD (I Am Not A Professional Game Dev) but, Unreal Engine uses C++. You have boost, SDL, Ogre3D, Irrlicht, EnTT, ImGui, etc... aka: C++ has a good ecosyste

IANAPGD (I Am Not A Professional Game Dev) but, Unreal Engine uses C++. You have boost, SDL, Ogre3D, Irrlicht, EnTT, ImGui, etc... aka: C++ has a good ecosystem for gamedev. The "Zero Cost Abstraction" philosophy of C++ makes it easier to squeeze out the performance you want. Unity (and recently Godot 4) uses C# but they are still relatively young in the field. We were making games long before those :) I would not say it's "THE" popular language, but it does have an history.