As you may or may not know, Digital Battle has been following the legal battle between Silicon Knights and Epic for a while now. Epic has tried to play cool and simply dismiss the accusations made by Silicon Knights. For those of you who haven’t been following this here’s the summary. Silicon Knights has a conspiracy theory that Epic isn’t holding up it’s side of the deal with those developers who have licensed the Unreal Engine. Silicon Knights is now demanding to know what Epic’s version of the Unreal Engine has that makes Gears Of War work better than another games using the licensed technology, like say, Too Human. Epic in turn tried to dismiss the accusations with a counterclaim, which Silicon Knights then countered.

Today we’ve found out that the move to dismiss the lawsuit has been denied, which means the two developers will have to settle this in a courtroom. Epic’s Mark Reign still isn’t worried though, and remains confident that the accusations are still unfounded.

“[The Judge] put the discovery process in motion, which will allow the lawsuits to move forward. Epic had asked for the entire case to be dismissed. Judge Dever denied this request, which is not unusual. Often these requests are denied. It is important to note that this was not a decision on the merits of Silicon Knights’ claims. We are confident that the evidence will show Silicon Knights breached its license with Epic Games and violated our copyrights and trade secrets.”

This battle is going to get very ugly. We will continue to keep you informed as more news comes in.