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Epic's Rein on Epic Baltimore and saving 'awesome guys' from 38 Studios' Big Huge Games

Big Huge Games members picked up for Epic Baltmore


Epic Baltimore, the new studio formed by Epic Games from the senior staff of 38 Studios' Big Huge Games, was a surprise announcement this past Sunday. Well, it's not like there was much warning for anyone, really, as Epic's VP and co-founder Mark Rein explained to us today at E3, giving much of the credit regarding the studio's creation to Epic president Mike Capps.

"Mike is the total hero there. They called him on Wednesday, interested in using one of our IPs. He flew them up the next day and they met with a whole bunch of people, and the board of directors of Epic. We made the call right there: 'These guys are awesome, we need to work with them.'"

"We don't have a final headcount yet. It's a decent number," Rein replied when asked about how many of the approximately 100 employees of Big Huge Games were going to be employed by Epic Baltimore. He told us they already had 40 resumes from BHG employees before the deal even went through. "Many of the people there had already gone on to places. This was just the core group of really experience guys who already had savings saved up that they tried to build a team and find a deal."

Rein also emphasized that they "wanted to work with one of Epic's IPs" and "it was a very good, natural fit."

With Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning 2 already in pre-production, we asked if Rein had any interest in buying Amalur from Rhode Island?

"We don't buy IP, we make IP."