iPhone Gears of War possible "in 2 years"

By Fred Dutton Published 2 November, 2010

Epic taking Apple's device very seriously.

Epic believes that it could be possible to put a game the size of Gears of War on the iPhone in as little as two years time.

Donald Mustard, creative director at Epic subsidiary Chair Entertainment, is currently developing the just-announced Infinity Blade for the iPhone – the first mobile game to run off the Unreal Engine. Like many gamers, he was reluctant to see Apple's smartphone as a proper gaming machine. Not any more.

"I didn't take it that seriously until we started making this game," he explained. "Now I'm like, 'Oh my goodness, this is literally going to be the best looking handheld game ever made'. It's way beyond what a DS or PSP could do.

"I think it's going to be an interesting future, especially if in two years we can really run Gears of War on an iPhone."

He's not far wrong. Have a look at the gallery below – Infinity Blade looks incredible.

Technical director Geremy Mustard then chimed in, "If not two years, then certainly five years. Well, it could be as soon as two years but within five years that will certainly be the case. It will at least be powerful enough to do that.

"Whether it'll be viable from a gaming standpoint that's a different question. Can I look at a little screen for two hours at a time and play a game steadily?"

Donald continued, "We've just been blown away by the amount of graphical power that we can be pushing through these tiny little devices that are in all our pockets.

"That's one of the reasons why Epic are so interested in getting their engine onto these devices. Projecting out three or four years into the future, if the current trends stay true, these devices are going to be just as powerful as the Xbox 360. We'll have a truly powerful console just sitting in all of our pockets.

"If that's the case, there's going be a lot more high-end games on the iPhone. We're just on the cusp of that. It's exciting.

Donald went on to reveal that Epic has had huge interest from other developers over licensing the Unreal Engine for iPhone development since the reveal of the Epic Citadel tech demo last month, both for original IPs and for porting existing titles.

NOA's Reggie Fils-Aime's recent remark that he sees Apple as Nintendo's main rival suddenly seems rather prescient, especially taking into account Epic VP Mark Rein's claim that the 3DS is not powerful enough to handle the Unreal Engine.

"What is that going to mean for gaming?" Donald adds regarding the increasing power of the iPhone. "Am I going to be able to be able to play Red Dead Redemption on it then press pause, put it down in front of my TV and plug in an HDMI cable and keep going?

"There's such a cool future there. It's an interesting time to be a consumer right now and to be a developer."

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • sfp_noodle #1 2 years ago

    Haha ambitious! But I'd love it if they managed it. Would even give up my beloved HTC Desire for it if it happened.

  • alcides #2 2 years ago

    Well perhaps not on this iPhone. In two years' time the Apple fanbase will have gone through 5 revisions of the bloody thing. Surely someday they'll have to ditch part of the older obsolete install base?

    I wouldn't want to be the buyer whose model doesn't make the cut :/

  • Lt.Dimension #3 2 years ago

    They should stick to making games that play to the phones strength's like Angry Birds with it's simple and addictive gameplay. Trying to shoehorn in a game that was clearly designed for a system with a control pad seems redundant to me. I don't like the onscreen d-pad stuff that requires you to cover up a chunk of the screen to control the game. I just think they should be going in a more casual direction with these phone games and not trying to make gears work on it.
    Edited by Lt.Dimension at 02/11/10 @ 23:20

  • djcool3005 #4 2 years ago

    Tbh they may get this to run on a phone but from experience on my Samsung Galaxy S trying to play a game with complex controls on a touch screen is a very frustrating experience. The touch screen controls are just too fiddly. Works very well for games like angry birds etc. I do hope they get Gears working on a phone but it'd need physical buttons for sure for it to be an enjoyable experience imo.

  • Kami #5 2 years ago

    I don't get it... I don't doubt in a few years the technology may be there (it may not however). But you'll have two handheld powerhouses in the PSP2 and 3DS to develop for as well... which will probably run it better, have better controls...

    iPhone gaming is fine and I'm all for pushing the boundries, but there's optimism and there's bullshit. If it works, I will be surprised and delighted for them, but right now... can't see this happening. Not without compromises and shortcuts... and that isn't always a good thing.

    iPhone gaming should be taken seriously. But maybe now people are taking it a bit too seriously...

  • FutureDave #6 2 years ago

    @kami

    You must have missed Carmack's Rage demo on an iPhone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t5nIA5zfhg

  • dr_zoidthrob #7 2 years ago

    It's not *just* iPhone gaming they should be concentrating on, Android has overtaken it in the US and it seems rather churlish to ignore it.

    Hopefully in a couple of years time, they may all be running the same version of the OS as well

  • Caimbeul #8 2 years ago

    the thing that gets me about all the companyies is that they dont get that the controls on the iphone dont work for most games you would normally find on other gaming platforms with dedicated controllers. you cant play any serious game if your fingers are in the bloody way all the time.

  • dfooster #9 2 years ago

    I know apple don't want loads of buttons ruining the sleek look of the iPhone but an analog pad come home button could be done as well as a few buttons on the side of the phone. Then we have a serious handheld gaming machine. Current iPhones with just touch screens then this won't work with the games suggested.

  • beastmaster #10 2 years ago

    Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

  • jstar #11 2 years ago

    I'm sorry, but if you are a games developer and you have ever in your life looked at the iphone and thought 'oh, I can't really see the potential in this device' then you have serious problems.

  • Freek #12 2 years ago

    Potential, absolutly. But in this case Epic seems to be falling into the same trap that developers previouse fell into with the PSP: making your mobile games too much like ports of your console games. When people are looking for a different experience in the mobile scene.

  • dog2_99 #13 2 years ago

    maybe all possible but Apple putting an HDMI port on the iPhone so we can connect easily to a TV is the most unlikely part of the prediction. Though maybe the new Airplay function will be the answer!?

  • CaptainQuint #14 2 years ago

    All fps and 3rd person games on iPhone are SHIT. Gears will be shit too.

    Why?

    The SHIT controls.

  • BigDannyH #15 2 years ago

    Needs a proper controller. But I'm sure the guys at Apple/Epic can make an add on with a few buttons and a control stick.

    Until then, the PSPhone is more interesting.

    And why does everyone love Angry Birds? It's so tedious.

  • Kami #16 2 years ago

    The ambitiousness, FutureDave, is in size. Demos are funny things - they show us what is technically possible, but not what they had to compromise to get there. The average game like Gears of War or Rage ranges from 7-12gb, so it's all well and good to say "Look at this demo! They did this in 500MB!" forgetting that the demo is - largely - only ten minutes long. We'd expect a much, MUCH larger game and truth is, that is going to up the size... quite considerably. So keeping the size down will mean compromises. Tech demos are great - no compromises, it's not so simple in real terms...

    But in any case, that is stating the obvious. I think, as others have said, the real problem is the iPhone just doesn't feel right with this sort of thing. It is a great machine being asked to run games that its interface isn't really honed for. As I said, there'll be two big powerhouses in the 3DS and PSP2 - who will have the space on their media, who will have proper control nubs and won't really need to compromise on things like sound, textures etc...

    I don't doubt the iPhone and iPad are good for gaming. But remember at its heart it is still a phone. I'm not sure Apple will really do a redesign for "gamers" (NGage says hi, btw). It will be limited in what it can do, how it can control things.

    As I said, iPhone gaming is serious business - it now appears people are taking it too seriously and not thinking of the problems behind it - Size, quality... and price, because a Rage game looking even halfway like the tech demo is going to cost the same as the boxed PC version...

    And I know which one I'd prefer to buy.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #17 2 years ago

    All that they're saying is applicable to Android (or Symbian, MeeGo, Limo, Bada, WebOS or even Blackberry OS and Windows Phone 7 if they release Native development kits). In fact, there was already an early WebOS demo of the Unreal Engine 3 stuff. And to be honest, it's really comparatively easy to write cross-platform code for all these platforms, since GPU vendors aside (and they all use OpenGL ES to access the GPU anyway) they're all basically the same technology platform.

    As far as Mark Rein's comments about the 3DS goes, the cutoff for the Unreal engine seems to be programmable pixel and vertex shaders, so all post-3GS, post-Nexus One, post N8 and all Palm Pre and Pixis are in.

    The problem is ensuring that one is able to make enough money out of each OS's app store. If the android community is lucky, then Google, or Amazon, or Sony or some combination of them will sort that out in time for these games to start hitting.

    Ironically, gamers need to hope for better DRM!

    Edited by MENTAL1ST at 03/11/10 @ 09:19

  • StolenGlory #18 2 years ago

    Captain Quint has the way of it i'm afraid.

    Shit, hippy touch controls = No buy for FPS/TPS.

  • infernox1 #19 2 years ago

    by then i hope the iphone will be replaced by something else as the must have mobile phone.

  • layleeloo #20 2 years ago

    Groaaaaaaaan. Why oh why?

  • NimbusTLD #21 2 years ago

    Yay! The Epic vs id wars of yore may be coming back! :)

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #22 2 years ago

    "if they want to be taken seriously as a portable gaming unit"

    I bet Apple are crying into the huge piles of millions and millions of dollars they're making from the App Store that a bunch of self-styled "hardcore" fanboy nerds don't take them "seriously".

    If you can't play games like Zombie Infection and Modern Combat with the touch-screen controls it's YOU that's the cack-handed spacker. Some of us can manage it just fine, even with our arthritic old thumbs.

  • axidrain #23 2 years ago

    i can't believe u so called hardcore gamers cant play fps properly on the iphone. with gyro it's easily manageable. stop complaining if you suck at gaming noobs

  • layleeloo #24 2 years ago

    @axidrain. "with gyro it's easily manageable". Thats not the point to most people. The point is there is a good control method for FPS, and that is either koyboard and mouse or two analogue sticks. The PSP proved how bad it was to play FPS on a machine not having suitable control methods.

    So it isnt a case of people not managing it - i have had a few demos of FPS (refusing to buy one as they are mostly pants) and it simply comes down to no matter what tech there is, FPS just doesnt work well enough on touch screen phones to justify the money, effort and resources to make something like gears on the platform.

    iPhones have some excellent games, i've downloaded around 500 so far, free and paid for however only around 40-50 ever remain on my phone and all those are ones which are made specifically for the phone. Simply becasue that is what works. FPS games which are adapted for the phone are just that, adaptations hence why they dont work without the relevant control methods.

    So sure, there are some of us who like you - can control FPS games on phones. But that still doesnt alther the fact that they are usually pants and disjointed, thus better off sticking to games made specifically for the relevant platforms, and not poor console or PC ports wth unsuitable control mechanics.
    Edited by layleeloo at 03/11/10 @ 14:56

  • Salaminizer #25 2 years ago

    I don't really like traditional games on the iPhone/iPod, but besides the controls, there's also the price issue. surely whatever Epic/Chair releases will be nearer $15 and higher than $10 and below. going by the top sellers list, I don't see them a really big success. most of the expensive games stay in the top for a few days but soon go away. Chaos Rings doesn't even appear in the top 200 anymore, SimCity 2 is still there but stayed for less than a week in the top 20 IIRC.

  • septimus #26 2 years ago

    Good news. And to everyone say 'why no android yadda yadda'. Android is not a fixed platform to develop for.