2K invests heavily in Unreal Engine 3

by Alexander Sliwinski { Feb 12th 2008 at 6:00PM }

Despite the issues some developers may be having, Epic keeps finding customers more than happy to stuff the engine maker's mattresses with hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars for an Unreal Engine 3 license. Epic's cash deluge continues today with 2K Games' announcement that it's entering into a licensing deal to use UE3 for various unannounced games.

2K Games' president stated the company has been happy with UE3 because it "enables games to perform exceptionally well on both console and the PC" and that, with Epic's support, they plan to continue producing "world-class" titles. While there's no word on what these unannounced games may be, 2K is currently on a development bender with Mafia II, Prizefighter, some sort of BioShock follow-up, the mysterious project at 2K Marin, and a few others in production

Tags: 2k-games, 2kgames, ue3, unreal-engine-3, unrealengine3

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

NeverSage @ Feb 12th 2008 6:04PM

Great, more dark, shiny, muscley men.

Rohit @ Feb 12th 2008 8:16PM

Right, because a friggin *game engine* determines character designs. Ever heard of RoboBlitz?

Seriously, I like it when gamers prefer gameplay to prettiness, but when we have people believing that graphics somehow degenerate fun, you can't help but...vote them down.

NeverSage @ Feb 12th 2008 8:24PM

Rohit,

Ever heard of Gears of War? Turok? Unreal Tournament? See a pattern?

I'm just getting a little tired of the same art style used in all these futuristic shooters.

FidliousWong @ Feb 12th 2008 8:41PM

Ever hear of Bioshock, Mass Effect, Too Human (just because they backwards engineered their engine from UE3 source doesn't mean it's completely removed) Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIII Versus? Unreal Engine 3 games...

Tell you what, Neversage...

Next time you want to make a list of three games that look the same, try not listed two from the same studio and lead artist (Kevin lanning was the lead character artist for Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3).

You should also research what exactly a game engine is... because right now you're assuming it's a "make game look like X" application. It's not. It saves developers a ton of time and effort so they can make the actual game. Unreal Engine 3 is 100% capable of effects such as celshading, water shading, and it's definately possible to crank out some unique visuals. But your design team has to be INTO that.

NeverSage @ Feb 13th 2008 2:37AM

Tell you what, FidliousWong...

I'm not going to sit here and argue that all UE3 games look the same. Because they don't. And I never said they did.

I made a joke about how a couple UE3 engine games look alike and you act like I just called your mom fat. And then you took the time to look up the statistics about how, in reality, she's just a little short for her weight.

Here's some free advice. Don't take everything someone says on the internet seriously. You'll just waste your time.

upz @ Feb 13th 2008 1:36PM

I believe the Final Fantasies are on Square's proprietary White Engine. It's Last Remnant that's using UE3.

Also, funny joke.

Marty @ Feb 12th 2008 6:08PM

Epic deserves it - they've been putting together solid engines for years, and they've earned the acclaim, as far as I'm concerned. Unreal Engine 3 continues to impress me as each new game that uses it is released.

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 12th 2008 6:08PM

It was nice at the beggining... now every Unreal Engine game looks the same...

Marty @ Feb 12th 2008 6:15PM

That's the developers' faults... not the engine.

Bloo @ Feb 12th 2008 7:23PM

Yeah, I can't tell Gears of War, BioShock, Mass Effect, and Lost Oddysey apart either! Oh wait, yes I can...

P.S. My opinion should be worth extra to you Fernando as I have 116 stars in SMG.

FidliousWong @ Feb 12th 2008 8:51PM

I always find it amazing that when people say something like all Unreal Engine games look alike, they love to point at Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3. Games which shared art staff and even character designer. So it isn't UE3 games that look alike, it's Kevin Lanning's designs...

Odd how that works. Now if you don't mind, I'm off to bitch about how Akira Toriyama designs lack feet and Yoshitaka Amano's designs all look female...

heckthor @ Feb 13th 2008 1:19AM

And thats not all... Almost every single game released uses Unreal Engine, it can look BADASS but after so many its starting to become a little annoying, some games look better with it but not every single one of them... Imagine Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry with Unreal Engine... Please Develop Responsibly...

Easo @ Feb 12th 2008 6:19PM

Dont worry, Carmacks in his lab cooking up a game engine that will do things that we didn't know was possible on this generations hardware. Carmack is always two years ahead of the rest us and whatever game id releases next is going to show it.

Anticrawl @ Feb 12th 2008 6:53PM

John Carmack may be a genius programmer but that won't stop the rest of the company from fucking all the games they develop up. Seriously they must use the interns Fox uses when the writers are on strike to write their game's scripts and Fox executives must come up with the plot and theme. Then they hire Fox's news team to sensationalize the game to the point where everyone will buy it for fear of catching the black plague.