Following up with Atari joining the Steam camp, Epic will be putting a large portion of their games onto Steam.
The Epic hits now available on Steam include Epic’s debut classic, Unreal Gold, as well as Unreal II: The Awakening and the Unreal Tournament series of games, including the recently released Unreal Tournament 3, which has shipped over one million copies to date.
All of Epic’s titles available on Steam are offered in the Unreal Deal Pack, an incredible value for just $59.95. And, to celebrate the launch, all of Epic’s games on Steam are available for 10% off their regular price.
I think we’ll be seeing a ton of Epic games now and in the future on Steam, except Gears of War. Since Microsoft has the publishing rights, I have a feeling it’ll be sticking to Games for Windows Live. A shame, really, since Steam is much better.
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Looks like Epic has decided which direction to go with their development. Tim Sweeney, the big daddy at Epic, dropped some knowledge on TG Daily.
The Unreal engine is really tied to a console cycle. We will continue to improve Unreal Engine 3 and add significant new features through the end of this console cycle. So, it is normal to expect that we will add new stuff in 2011 and 2012. We’re shipping Gears of War now; we’re just showing the next bunch of major tech upgrades such as soft-body physics, destructible environments and crowds. There is a long life ahead for Unreal Engine 3. Version 4 will exclusively target the next console generation, Microsoft’s successor for the Xbox 360, Sony’s successor for the Playstation 3 – and if Nintendo ships a machine with similar hardware specs, then that also. PCs will follow after that.
Looks like Sweeney doesn’t care too much about that PC Gaming Alliance they helped form. Consoles are where it’s at, if we’re to believe the development cycle for the Unreal Engine.
Microsoft’s keynote today at GDC, but that doesn’t mean their European PR team can’t drop a press release early. In the document, they announced Gears of War 2 in conjunction with Epic. Is anyone really surprised?
The game will be released in November 2008, and will provide more of the story that was originally developed as a trilogy.
The first Gears was a huge success, which we gave Game of the Year in 2006. So go play through that first game again a few times while we wait for Marcus Fenix to make his return later this year.
The internets are swarming with reports that Microsoft might be buying Epic, creators of Gears of War, the Unreal Engine, etc. According to an editorial in GamePro, Microsoft will drop $1 billion on the developer. Mark Rein responded via develop:
“I have not seen the actual GamePro article but if they’re going to make predictions about us selling Epic we would prefer if they started at $2 billion,” he said. “Because we don’t want anyone thinking that we’re cheap.”
This is something I honestly don’t think would happen. With the Unreal Tournament 3 modding on consoles, Mark Rein has made some not-so-nice comments about Microsoft in terms of how things need to be run for the game. Could you imagine if future UT games were pigeon-holed into Windows Live? Or if Microsoft stopped allowing the use and licensing of the Unreal Engine for platforms other than their own? Speculative, but something I hope never happens.
The great modder Zubren has done the unthinkable. Well, I’m sure a lot of us thought of it, but none of us had the skills to actually do it. Zubren recreated the Halo map Wizard in Unreal Tournament 3.
This is a remake of the Halo map named Wizard. This was a great close quarters map and I felt it would be right at home with Unreal Tournament 3. This also has full bot pathing so you can play singleplayer without having to find a server with someone hosting this map.
The modding community around UT3 is exploding rapidly with some great content. This one is available for both the PC and PS3, so get downloading.
[via Epic Forums]
Now that the mod tools have been released for the Unreal Editor 3, we’ve got our first user cooked PS3 mod. And it’s a damn good one at that. The mod is called Action Cam v1.0. This mutator allows you to play UT3 with an over the shoulder view, similar to Gears of War. How cool is that?
Enter the battle with an over the shoulder camera and see the Action from an all new perspective! Action Cam is designed to offer better visibility, depth, and feedback to the player than the normal first person view, and offers pixel-perfect accuracy.
There’s a few issues right now, which will be addressed in an update to the mutator from Fall, the author. Check the Epic Forums for the download link and get the update when it’s available. Great job, Fall! Keep it up!
We just received word from Epic that the much anticipated update for the Unreal Editor 3 to allow PS3 mod cooking has been OFFICIALLY released.
A link was going around the internet earlier for the closed beta, but we’re pleased to announce the full official release from Epic. If you have the PC version on Unreal Tournament 3, grab the update and start cooking mods for the PS3 
[Update] For some reason the mod tools download link was taken down from that page. You can grab it here.
Epic has released a beta version of the imminent update for the Unreal Editor 3. What’s in the this update? Oh, nothing big. Only the ability cook PS3 mods! Currently, this is a closed beta, so unless you got the email from Epic, you’re going to have to wait a bit. The final release is expected in about a week, so don’t get too hung up on waiting.
We’re checking in with Epic to see how long this will remain a closed beta. We’ll see what they say, but if this goes public, we’ll have the download link for you. Keep checking here or the Unreal Developer Network for updates.
Well, it looks like Epic has worked out all the legal issues with Sony surround the update for the Unreal Editor 3. Mark Rein announced that the update, which allows users to cook their own PS3 mods for Unreal Tournament 3, is in the final stages of internal testing and should be released next week, if everything goes to plan.
We’re very close to releasing an update to the Unreal Engine 3 editor, that comes with the PC version of UT3, that will allow UT3 mod-makers to cook their mods into the required PS3 format. We’ve been doing some internal testing and we’re hoping to expand to a wider group tomorrow or Friday. If all goes well then we should see the update released next week which is what I expect will happen. Obviously the process works, as we put out a few mods before Christmas and people seem to be playing them, but it is the update to the editor that we’re testing.
This is great news for PS3 gamers who are looking to get some more mod action going on their copy of Unreal Tournament 3. I know the mods already released are terrific, and I only hope the community continues to grow.
Since users can’t create their own PS3 mods yet for Unreal Tournament 3, Epic decided to cook up a few themselves. Right now, there’s some legal issues involved with adding some code to the Unreal Editor to allow cooking of PS3 mods. As soon as that’s worked out, the update for the Unreal Editor will be released. It’s slightly annoying this all wasn’t worked out before the game was released.
Anyway, Mark Rein posted a couple links to some of the best mods so far for UT3 cooked up for the PS3. Extract them one at a time onto a USB key or however else you want to get them to your PS3. You can’t do multiple ones at a time, unfortunately. They all look pretty cool, and free maps is always a great thing. So check them out and see what you might be able to come up with yourself.
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