My experience with Unreal is limited. I’ve played only the Dreamcast game Unreal Tournament, a multiplayer first-person shooter based on the traditional modes that we’ve come to expect in any multiplayer game. A very fun game in a series that has a significant following. The last release was Unreal Tournament 3 for the PS3 roughly 4 years ago.
An interview by IndustryGamers directed towards Mike Capps, president of Epic, had him saying “We have a couple other major franchises that we’ve not been paying attention to. It’s been a long time since we shipped an Unreal game, and it’s an awfully loved franchise that we hold pretty dear here. We haven’t been giving it the attention it deserves because we’ve been focusing on Gears of War and we’re still a relatively small company.”
Even if you’ve not played Unreal, it’s very likely you have played a game that uses its engine. The Brothers in Arms series, the Harry Potter games, and the Splinter Cell series all run on the Unreal Engine. The list on Wikipedia is a testament to its flexibility.
Epic Games have been focusing heavily on its series Gears of War, and have also been making new IPs such as Shadow Complex and Bulletstorm to expand their resume in the gaming industry. Mike did say “… but somethimes I think just as a businessman that maybe we should be spending some more time with our existing franchises.”, this could be hinting as a desire to create another Unreal game. There are currently 8 games in the series, most of them orientates towards multiplayer. I’d personally welcome a new game in the series as Unreal is one of the few FPS games I actually enjoy playing.
