Unreal 'Hasn't Gotten Attention it Deserves,' admits Epic
Unreal Tournament III on PS3 back in 2007 (2008 for 360) was the last time we saw a major release in Epic's Unreal franchise. Fans have been patiently waiting as the North Carolina-based studio continued to pump its resources into the blockbuster Gears of War trilogy, which concludes this holiday season. But what's next? Will Epic return to the franchise that shares its name with the company's middleware business? Judging by recent comments, we think there's a good chance.
"We have a couple other major franchises that we've not been paying attention to. It's been a long time since we shipped an Unreal game, and it's an awfully loved franchise that we hold pretty dear here. We haven't been giving it the attention it deserves because we've been focusing on Gears of War and we're still a relatively small company," Epic President Mike Capps told IndustryGamers this week in advance of a keynote presentation he'll be making at GDC Europe in August.
Capps even joked with us about the company's ubiquitous Unreal Engine, "At some point you wonder why we don't rename the engine the Gears Engine or something."
The bottom line, however, is that going back to the Unreal franchise just makes plain business sense. And as cool as the properties are that Epic has been working on of late, the company needs to make money.
"We've been sort of focused on making new properties, which you've seen with Shadow Complex, BulletStorm and Infinity Blade, but sometimes I think just as a businessman that maybe we should be spending some more time with our existing franchises," he told us.
A new Unreal game for holiday 2012 perhaps? Who wants to take bets?
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/unreal-hasnt-gotten-attention-it-deserves-admits-epic/