The solution configurations are named as (for example, 'DevelopmentEditor' for the default editor target, and 'Development' for the default standalone game target). In Visual Studio, this manifests as a Visual Studio *.vcxproj file with different configurations for each target.

Furthermore, each of these can be built to different configurations. Unreal projects have multiple targets, including Editor, Client, Game, and Server, described by *.target.cs files. These are automatically generated when a project is created using a C++ template, or when the CPP Class Wizard is used to add code to a project created from a Blueprints Only template. UnrealBuildTool uses the *.build.cs and *.target.cs files to build the game project. This process occurs transparently allowing you to simply build the project through the standard Visual Studio build workflow.

Unreal Engine (UE) uses a custom building method using the UnrealBuildTool (UBT) which handles all the complex aspects of compiling the project and linking it with the engine.

Visual studio compiler c++