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Epic is taking over a dozen games offline, including Rock Band and Unreal titles
Epic Games is shutting down "out-of-date online services" and servers for several of its older games starting today. Most affected titles will still be available offline, but others will no longer work.
Epic Games sues AR glasses maker Nreal over its name
It infringes on trademarks for Unreal, according to Epic.
The Epic Games Store adds 'Warframe' to its lineup of free titles
The Unreal Tournament Weapon Bundle is only available on the Epic Store.
Facial mocap comes to Unreal Engine via new iPhone app
A new iOS app for Unreal Engine uses your iPhone to capture your facial expressions and animate an onscreen character in real time. Live Link Face is designed to work in both professional game production settings, like a soundstage with actors in full mocap suits, and amaetur ones, such as a single artist at a desk, according to a blog post from Unreal Engine developer Epic Games. The app is available now from Apple’s app store.
Short film created in Unreal Engine showcases a photorealistic world
A short film that premiered at GDC highlights the photorealism potential of Unreal Engine, and it would be easy to assume Rebirth is a live-action short given how life-like it looks. The video depicts an atmospheric environment full of craggy rocks, hills and fog, along with an imposing, industrial structure. We then see a futuristic car speeding across the landscape towards the building.
Epic Games has 250 million 'Fortnite' players and a lot of plans
When Tim Sweeney built ZZT in 1991, he didn't know how to program graphics. Instead of coding actual characters and objects into his game, he used text symbols, and the main character was simply a smiley face trailing across the screen. "That included both a game goal, and just running through levels and shooting monsters," Sweeney told Engadget at the Game Developers Conference. "It also included an editor so everybody could build their own levels."
Epic Games' Unreal Engine will support HoloLens
You can't call HoloLens 2 a gaming platform, but Microsoft is at least laying the groundwork. Epic Games has announced that it's adding HoloLens support to Unreal Engine 4, the technology that powers a wide range of games and 3D productivity apps. It's "up and running" now, Epic's Tim Sweeney said, and should be available to all developers in May. You're not about to play an augmented-reality version of Fortnite. It should allow for "photorealistic" 3D in AR apps, though, and it's really just the start of Epic's plans.
Unity, Improbable and Epic Games are squabbling in public
What a day. Unity, Improbable and Epic Games have been wrapped up in a bizarre and unnecessarily public dispute about terms of service, and the future of games that run on a much-hyped platform called Spatial OS. The quarrel started this morning with an Improbable blog post titled: "Unity's block of SpatialOS."
Fox Sports’ new virtual studio runs on Unreal Engine
It's no secret that Epic Games has enabled a number of gaming studios to create more-realistic visuals with its Unreal game engine. Since its debut in 1998, powering the first-person shooter Unreal, the technology has evolved to power hundreds of games, from Fortnite to Street Fighter V, and with that process, the virtual has become increasingly more realistic. Now in its fourth iteration, Unreal Engine is no longer exclusively being used for gaming, as other industries have taken notice of the possibilities. Unreal Engine 4 has become a key element for film and television in recent years, and Fox Sports is using it to power its new, completely virtual studio set. "Virtual sets have been around for quite some time, and we've done our fair share of using them," Zac Fields said. "But it's always been a struggle to give that sense of photo realism." Fields oversees Fox Sports' Graphic Technology and Integration department, which includes the addition of new gear during a studio build. He said the team started thinking about the idea of a virtual set about two years ago. Around 15 months ago, the network started getting staff familiar with the software and began tests. Then last winter, the broadcaster did a virtual show. Fields described this as a "full run-through" of a show on the virtual set that was built in Charlotte, North Carolina.
With 'Siren,' Unreal Engine blurs the line between CGI and reality
Epic Games has been obsessed with real-time motion capture for years, but the company is now trying to take its experiments with the technology one step further. Enter "Siren," a digital personality that it created alongside a few prominent firms in the gaming industry: Vicon, Cubic Motion, 3Lateral and Tencent (which just became a major investor in Ubisoft). The crazy thing about Siren is that she comes to life using live mocap tech, powered by software from Vicon, that can make her body and finger movements be captured and live-streamed into an Unreal Engine project.
Microsoft Research helped 'Gears of War 4' sound so good
Popping in and out of cover has been a hallmark of the Gears of War franchise since the first game came out in 2006. It hasn't changed much because it didn't need to. What's always been an issue though is how thin the game sounds -- a shortcoming of the underlying tech, Unreal Engine, powering it. But Microsoft owns the series now and has far more money to throw at it than former owners/Unreal Engine creators Epic Games did. With help from Microsoft Research, Redmond's Gears of War factory The Coalition found a high tech way to fix that problem. It's called Triton. Two years ago Microsoft Research's Nikunj Raghuvanshi and John Snyder presented a paper (PDF) titled "Parametric Wave Field Coding for Precomputed Sound Propagation." The long and short of the research is that it detailed how to create realistic reverb effects based on objects in a video game's map, to hear it in action pop on a pair of headphones and watch the video below.
JJ Abrams is working on a game with the makers of 'Infinity Blade'
JJ Abrams' attempt to conquer the gaming world isn't just limited to a partnership with Valve. His Bad Robot studio is teaming up with Infinity Blade creator ChAIR on Spyjinx, an espionage game hitting both PCs and phones in 2016. The two are saying precious little about the title right now, but they're promising a blend of action, role-playing, strategy and even world building -- this is far more than just a Team Fortress 2 game mode. It's as if players will be in the "brainstorming session" with developers, Abrams teases. If that whets your appetite, you can sign up for chance to participate in a closed beta test that kicks off next year.
Experience bullet time in Epic's crazy VR demo
Game-tech powerhouse Epic Games and its Unreal Engine are capable of some seriously impressive stuff, and now the North Carolina-based outfit wants you to experience what it's capable of in the virtual reality space. "Showdown" is the demo that the outfit's been showing off at industry events for the past year or so (I got to try it at CES back in January) and it's by far the most bad-ass bullet-time walk toward a hulking, missile-happy, bipedal robot I've ever experienced. The path is predetermined, sure, but as the street explodes into chaos around you, it's entirely possible to duck down or peer around objects like pop cans or even cars as they hurtle toward you in slow motion.
Mario and Sonic look absolutely stunning in Unreal Engine 4
Unreal Engine 4 has shown us what the next generation of video games can look like: large, realistic and mind-bogglingly gorgeous. Frankly, its tech demos are breathtaking -- technical marvels that show off photo-realistic apartments and stunningly beautiful landscapes; but what happens when you cram cartoonish mascots like Mario and Sonic The Hedgehog into these technical marvels? Mind-blowingly awesome YouTube videos, that's what.
Unreal Engine 4 is (sort of) coming to Wii U and PS Vita
Long-time Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi is currently Kickstarting a spiritual sequel to the series called Bloodstained. Thanks to the overwhelming response to the campaign -- it's now the highest-grossing videogame Kickstarter ever -- the game is coming to PS Vita and Wii U. While that's great news for fans of the genre, the knock-on effect of the port could be huge. Bloodstained is being built using Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), and Armature Studio, the developer in charge of the Vita and Wii U versions, will be the first to port the popular engine to the platforms. Why's that so important? Well, both consoles are currently unsupported, and Armature says it will share its Vita and Wii U code with any developer authorised to create games for the systems, potentially opening the door for many more ports of UE4-powered games in the future.
'Fortnite' would be a fun game, if it weren't so complex
When Fortnite started teaching me how to build a fort, its gentle tutor voice told my pickaxe-wielding warrior to never forget this simple rule: Remember to make a door. When you build forts in Fortnite -- in addition to about a billion other activities -- you want to make durable fortifications protecting a glowing portal from ravenous zombies that want to destroy it. That fort is no good if you can't get out of it or re-enter it to make improvements on the fly. Still, Fortnite creator Epic Games doesn't appear to follow the game's own advice. While a brilliantly simple, edifying puzzle of collaboration and creativity lies within, it's buried beneath myriad layers of confounding busy work and mechanical complexity. Right now, Fortnite doesn't have a door.
Unreal game engine will support HTC's virtual reality headset
The crew at Epic Games has made a point of welcoming virtual reality with open arms, and it's not about to shy away any time soon. The studio recently updated its roadmap with indications that Unreal Engine 4 will support Steam VR (and by extension, the HTC Vive headset) no later than May. Also, Epic isn't wasting much time getting up to speed with Sony's newer Project Morpheus gear -- there's promises of silky-smooth 120Hz visuals, among other things. This wider support won't matter until you can buy both the VR hardware and titles based on UE4, but it suggests that there won't be a shortage of immersive gaming when everything lines up.
Epic Games is giving away $5 million to Unreal Engine 4 developers
Back in the days of dial-up, when Tim Sweeney was 21 and in his third year of college, he needed cash to release his first game -- "thousands of dollars," as he recalls. To pay for the game's launch, for two summers he borrowed his dad's tractor and mowed lawns in his childhood neighborhood. Today, Sweeney is the founder of Epic Games: a powerhouse in the video game world, responsible for the Gears of War franchise and Unreal Engine, now in its fourth iteration of providing development tools to aspiring and established game developers. With Epic's status and resources, Sweeney today announced Unreal Dev Grants, a pool of $5 million available to anyone creating interesting projects in Unreal Engine 4. No strings -- or tractors -- attached.
Massively Interview: Burning Dog on Origin of Malu's do-over
When last we heard of the the indie sandbox Origins of Malu, Burning Dog Media had gone back to the drawing board for a do-over. The studio switched game engines, effectively starting the development process over again (again). But despite what some fans may fear, that isn't nearly as bad as it sounds! In fact, it's rather good news because players will be getting a far better game, and they won't have to wait very long to get it. I sat down with Producer Michael Dunham to talk about the changes and get a look at the progress the team has made.
How much does Metal matter to iOS developers? A ton, apparently
For anyone who hasn't dabbled in the rendering capabilities of Apple's iOS devices, the announcement of Metal -- the new API that Apple claims will offer greater power for games than ever before -- was cool, but that's about it. But for the team behind the hugely popular Unity game engine, the upcoming update is extremely exciting. Metal is designed to give developers much more control over the power used by the iOS devices that run their games. With less power needed to run the API, more resources can be devoted to making games run smoother and look better. As CVG reports, the change has impressed Unity's developers quite a bit. "Based on our testing so far, we have seen API+driver overhead vanish to just a few percent of CPU time," the team claims. "That is a tremendous improvement comparing to 15-40% of CPU time that it used to be before!" This comes on the heels of praise from Epic Games, creators of the vaunted Unreal Engine, who took the stage at WWDC 2014 to show off an impressive "Zen Garden" demo running on Unreal Engine 4 and Metal. With performance gains as high as 40%, Metal -- which is on the way in Apple's iOS 8 update -- is undoubtedly going to give marquee developers even more reason to devote time to Apple's platform.
