With the sale this morning of its iconic Gears of War franchise, Epic Games felt compelled to say it still is in the business of making video games, not just the technology that drives them. “For people saying Epic isn’t making games anymore, we currently have multiple games in development, including [Fortnite],” Wes Phillips, an Epic spokesman, tweeted this morning after the announcement.
Fortnite, a survive-the-night style crafting game, has been in development at least since late 2011. The Infinity Blade series of iOS titles is made by Chair Entertainment, which is an Epic subsidiary.
However, the departure of Gears of War, which Epic introduced in 2006, means the firm’s most recognisable current brand is its Unreal Engine, currently in its fourth version. The last title Epic developed for consoles was Gears of War: Judgment, which released in March 2013.
The departures of longtime, highly visible figures have also added to the rap that Epic is distancing itself from games. It’s not just Rod Fergusson’s departure in 2012 to work on BioShock Infinite (Fergusson will rejoing Gears with Microsoft), but also the departure of Gears of War’s public face, Cliff Bleszinski, in October of that year. Mike Capps retired as Epic’s president a month later.
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10 responses to “Epic Says It’s Still Making Video Games”
So no future Unreal Tournament yet? Disappointing, especially considering the success Battlefield’s had moving to consoles. Gears Of War really wasn’t my thing which was disappointing as it did look fantastic at the time
I think at this point its safe to say they are console devs. Since UT3 the few games they have released for PC are usually ported over from 360 and have GFWL.
Except that wasn’t Epic proper, but rather their subsidiary People Can Fly (the makers of Bulletstorm)
God bulletstorm ruled. Everyone go play that game.
Bulletstorm – what duke nukem forever will never be.
Damn str8. Fantastic game!
This is whats happened. Epic Games were done with Gears of War. They envisioned the series as a Trilogy, and that is how the series should stay.
Of coarse Epic would have gained a fortune for selling Gears, and now Microsoft are stuck with a series that no one wants to continue and wont make anywhere near the amount of cash that MS hopes for.
I’m confused…..
So, Epic aren’t still developing Unreal Engine 4? I’d assume that quite a lot of their money comes from licensing their engines. UE3 powers a huge number of games.
UE3 is probably as, if not more, popular than CryEngine, Source and Unity for game production.
UE3 yes, but has anyone spotted a UE4 game in the wild? All the majors seem to be building their own engines these days – arguably the new generation has more Frostbite games than Unreal ones.
Perhaps. But UE4 isn’t finished yet I don’t think. Seems odd they would abandon it, as it seemed to have a lot of new features which aren’t in many [or any] other engines yet.
And engine middleware has never been for the ‘majors’ anyway. They all have their own engine’s built, you are correct.