Unreal Engine 3 comes to Mac OS X, courtesy of September UDK release

A scant four years after announcing Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 were coming to Mac OS X, Epic has finally renewed its enthusiasm for the Mac with the announcement of native Unreal Engine 3 support, courtesy of the free-to-use Unreal Development Kit. "Every UDK game's potential user base has increased dramatically yet again," the announcement reads, promising a previews of the engine's Mac OS support in the September 2011 UDK release.

Considering Epic's high-profile support of Apple's Mac OS X-derived mobile operating system iOS, not to mention consistent Mac support from developers like Valve and Blizzard, Epic's entry in the space is hardly unexpected. But Mac support from Unreal Engine should extend far beyond Epic's own games; as one of the most popular development environments in existence, today's announcement (coupled with viable markets like Steam and the Mac OS App Store) should help UE-based developers reach an entirely new audience.