This paper investigates the role of game engines as design tools in architectural education and presents the educational practices that took place at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly. More specifically, it focuses on the shift towards the liberation from the visual design approach and the exploration of the architectural design process in terms of atmosphere creation and narrative construction. Game engines offer the possibility of constructing digital environments enriched with multiple features, such as interactivity, weather system simulations, real time rendering, artificial intelligence behaviors, etc., thus resulting in the composition of motivational and immersive environments. In this paper, game engines are treated as a powerful tool that evolves along with technological advances being capable of permitting through all levels of architectural design.