Epic’s Mark Reign revealed today that the very beautiful Unreal Engine 4 will be seen “later this year,” but says that games won’t be able to run on the engine until 2014. Last week at DICE, Reign told G4 “people are going to be shocked later this year when they see Unreal Engine 4 and how much more profound an effect it will have.” If that’s not exicing enough, just look at the beautiful image enclosed in this post. This definitely makes sense, considering that we will be seeing some next gen console previews later in 2012, as well.
Epic Games, the creators of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament, have revealed that their websites and forums were hacked, and that users emails from their forums have been leaked onto the web (or rather, exposed to the hackers, which usually means they’ve been leaked). Epic says that password were leaked as well, but they were encrypted. As a precaution, Epic has reset all the passwords on the site.
This is yet another incident in the streak of game related website hackings that have taken place over the past few months, were Nintendo, Codemasters, among others, have had security breaches. Then there’s Sony, which had its PlayStation Network servers shut down for over a month when a hacker group attacked their systems.
Big time developers and publishers are having a tough time competing with the emerging smaller devs that exclusively work on iPhone games. Because when your competitor offers a $0.99 cent game on iPhone that’s of decent quality, it’s a lot harder to sell a game for 60 bucks to the same audience, and gamers are now expecting cheaper and cheaper games, something AAA titles simply cannot offer.
Epic games knows this, as Epic president Mike Capps said in an interview with GamesIndustry. Capps said “How do you sell someone a $60 game that’s really worth it … They’re used to 99 cents.”. It’s not surprising that major developers see the 99 cent market as a huge threat to their business. But both Epic and the big publishers have tried to get into the iPhone market, Epic especially with Infinity Blade and they’re now even offering an Unreal Engine SDK for the platform as well.
Those who purchased a copy of the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm 3 will be getting access to the much talked about Gears of War 3 beta today. Access to the Gears 3 beta was one of the selling points for Bulletstorm, but there are other ways of getting into the beta. One is to beg Epic for a beta code. Another, easier way is to simply pre-order Gears of War 3 on GameStop. Those who pre-order get beta access on April 25.
The Gears of War 3 beta runs until May 15, and has four maps designed to test many aspects of the multiplayer part of the game. If you participated in the beta, you’ll get a chance to unlock new gun skins which can be used in the retail game, in addition to a bunch of other unlocks you can get.
On the Xbox 360 one of the biggest exclusives is Epic Games’ Gears of War franchise. This franchise has put up high sales numbers just about every time a new title has been released and the studio is gearing up to launch the third addition appropriately dubbed Gears of War 3. If you’re a follower of the series you’ll know that a multiplayer beta for the game is set to launch later this month. What you may not have known, however, is that a new multiplayer design video has just hit the web today focusing on none other than Gears of War 3.
We’ve included the video for you to check out above so do so and let us know what you think. Gears of War 3 will be out exclusively for the Xbox 360 on September 20th, 2011. Wil you be getting it?
Warner Bros Interactive and its studios, which include Rocksteady Studios (developers of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman Arkham City) and NetherRealm Studios (developers of Mortal Kombat), have struck a deal with Epic Games for an Unreal Engine 3 license to all their games through 2014. Why 2014? Well, that’s apparently when Unreal Engine 4 will be released, and UE4 will only be available for next generation consoles. That’s good to know. It’s also good to know that the next Batman game (after Akrham City), will most likely be a lot prettier than the current one.
Epic recently revealed an updated version of the engine at GDC, which blew everyone’s mind. You can check that sweet video here.
Epic was well represented at the latest GDC, which just wrapped up in San Francisco. They showcased the latest version of their popular Unreal Engine 3, and the demo certainly blew us away, with a dark, Blade Runner meets Robocop meets Deus Ex look. Watch for yourself and be amazed. We can only wish that this would be a game one day, but sadly, it appears to only be a demo showcasing what the engine can do today.
Unreal Engine 3 is the de facto game engine of this generation console games, and has powered dozens of games, including Gears of War, Unreal 3, Bulletstorm, and many many others. A typical license fee for the engine runs upwards of $1 million, with a 5% royalty paid to Epic on all game sales. Yes, everything comes with its price.
Epic already has several successful franchises, like Unreal and Gears of War, and the upcoming Bulletstorm. Now Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski has told EGM that they play to unveil a brand new IP at this years Game Developer’s Conference. He said,
“Call of Duty was crafted by the original Medal of Honor guys. Gears of War was crafted by the original Unreal Tournament guy. I look forward to creating what’s next.”
No other details were revealed, but since it’s Epic, we expect lots of action, guns, shooting, and blood. Maybe chainsaws as well.
Mass Effect 2 has seen some tremedous reception from pretty much everything. Hopefully, the same can be said about Mass Effect 3 — It was just announced by Epic‘s Vice President Mark Rein that BioWare will be returning to Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 for Mass Effect 3.
Rein comments:
BioWare chose UE3 for the Mass Effect trilogy because they wanted to make an immersive third-person perspective shooter game with sci-fi environments.
Let’s hope this means the game is going to be great.
If you followed this year’s E3 you may remember the live demonstration of Microsoft’s Project Natal where two different game demos entitled Paint Party and Richocet, were showcased. If you’ve seen said demos you were sure to have noticed that they featured some rather impressive physics.
Those impressive physics could be attributed to none other than Unreal Engine 3. This realization was made known during an OXM interview with Epic’s Mark Rein.
Sure, it proves that Unreal Engine 3′s capabilites are still prevalent years after it was released but the real gem here is that current game engines could in fact support the new motion control technology. This inevitably means that game developers will be able to create immersive Project Natal games without much difficulty.
Videos of the Paint Party and Richochet demonstration from E3 ’09 included after the break. READ ON »
