Rein celebrates PS3 mod ability

By Tom Bramwell Published 29 November, 2007

"They are embracing real art."

Epic Games' Mark Rein has spoken in more depth about the degree to which user-generated content is possible in the PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3 - and applauded Sony's "wonderful" decision to make PSN an "open system".

"This is the full power of the Unreal Editor," Rein said of what can be done on PS3 in an interview with Gamasutra.

"The same editor we used to create the games is now available to you. You want to import your objects you made in 3D Studio Max or Maya? Bring them in! You want to code an UnrealScript? Code an UnrealScript! All those things you can do. If they fit on our map, you can stick them on the PlayStation 3 and they'll run!"

All you do is download the map using a PC, pop it on a Memory Stick and then fire it up. The content has to be built on PC, but he described the process of converting a PC-made map to PS3 as "like saving a file in Word in a different format".

When pressed about whether Sony was bothered about the lack of restriction, Rein said he was confused about why journalists always brought it up. "I'm always shocked when I talk to media, and it's like, do you want to censor people? I know it sounds incredulous to say that, but that's kind of what I hear you say," he noted at one stage.

But he was typically effusive in his praise for Sony's online system. "When they embrace user-created content, that's what it means to be an open system. That's why we're on PlayStation 3 first - because they are embracing user-created content. It's not just moving the deck chairs around the boat. They are embracing real art."

And they're doing that this year in the US, with a release planned for mid-December, followed by Europe early in 2008. Unreal Tournament III launched on PC last Friday and we jolly well liked it. Look out for our thoughts on the PS3 version soonish.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • BadBoyBonner #1 4 years ago

    Cue lot's of porn inspired levels.

  • GamesProgrammer Verified Games Team Programmer, Eutechnyx Ltd. #2 4 years ago

    Sounds cool, to be honest i think i personally would still development my mods or maps on a PC, but its fantastic that i would be able to run them on my PS3, as to be fair my PC isnt really up to the task now its over 3 years old i bet.

  • Darkedge #3 4 years ago

    can of worms he's opening and I don't think he has a clue about it.
    The first US parents lawsuit will change his mind

  • Darren #4 4 years ago

    Wow, a developer singing the praises of the PS3... must be a first... :o

  • light&shadow #5 4 years ago

    This is amazing news for art schools like the one I'm teaching in as they'll enable art students to export their objects and maps and view it on a retail ps3. Great stuff.

  • Mr_Dodger #6 4 years ago

    "It's not just moving the deck chairs around the boat."

    Nice subtle little jab at forge there.

    As for porn levels - I'm sure they can be done, but how many were made for UT2K4 etc?

  • Pedrolot #7 4 years ago

    This is Living..

  • dazzaman #8 4 years ago

    Why would you have to download to PC first, why not just download via the PS3 browser, that would be an open system.

    All good stuff though, just think they've missed a trick if you cant download a map direct.

  • Arwin #9 4 years ago

    I think you'll be able to download from the PS3 browser to a memory card / external hdd, and then install the mod from there. I mean you can download almost anything that way using the PS3 browser I think, so why not that? (It's interesting though that you can't download that kind of stuff directly to the PS3's HDD, probably for security reasons mostly, though I can think of other reasons too)

    He's also talking in the context of creating the mod on your PC yourself and then taking it from there to your PS3.

  • Xerx3s #10 4 years ago

    Nice subtle little jab at forge there.

    Yeah, I see he is still making comments about something he doesn't understand. Multiplayer mode != editor.

  • Mox #11 4 years ago

    light&shadow: so why don't you just do it on the PC?

  • DSKUK #12 4 years ago

    I love the way how he always seems to praise the console that's giving him the cash at the time. I'm sure he praised the 360 when Gears came out, and I'm sure he'll praise it again once MS allow him to allow mods on the 360

  • dazzaman #13 4 years ago

    I'm looking forward to using the sixaxis pad to control the map maker and use it to rotate pieces and move them around.

    No, really I am.

  • miiiguel #14 4 years ago

    I never liked "modishness", then again, I'm not really a big run'n'gun enthusiast. This thingy sounds more like MS fauna (not beeing "open", of course, but the hack bit). The world's really changing, PS praising shooters, kissing US arse all the time; MS getting loadsa japanese games and flirting (not beeing flirted back though) Japaneses. Nintendo swiming in money...

    PS'ers beware of malicious mods/hacks though, seriously.
    Edited by 1 at 29/11/07 @ 11:26

  • miiiguel #15 4 years ago

    Nintendo sells 1 Million in 1 (one) week. It's a mad world...

  • miiiguel #16 4 years ago

    Let's try the royalty way:

    "Porque No Te Callas ?"

  • agparrot #17 4 years ago

    His enthusiasm for all this sort of reminds me of downloading mods for Doom a loooooong time ago, when you could replace the sound effects with noises from the Simpsons, or Monty Python, and that enterprising fellow did a complete mod to make the enemies look like 'Alien' aliens, and the guns to be like they were in Aliens The Movie.

    'The community' showed a great deal of imagination and dedication, and having this sort of feature available in the console arena is only something to look forward to, imho.

    My real reason for posting was Rein's comment about 'embracing real art' - I think it would be interesting to have a debate between Mssrs Ebert and Rein - perhaps via the medium of Live Text Chat or whatever the internet allows you to do, about why they view art in relation to games differently.

  • light&shadow #18 4 years ago

    @Mox

    We already do it on pc. But because learning to optimize resources is part of the class and on pc the answer is always 'this pc is crap it'll run smoothly on a better machine'...

    PS3 like any console is a fixed architecture and therefore is better to make student understand what influences performances and compare their results with professional work.

    Not to mention the pleasure of seeing your work running on a console on a large TV.

  • Chufty #19 4 years ago

    You cant make exploitive stuff with the UnrealEd tools. Everything is made in the context of the game engine.

    UnrealScript is not the raw code that the architecture runs, it's just a scripting language. You can only code for the engine, not the hardware.

    I've been using UScript and UnrealEd for years and it's fantastic news that the new tools will work for the PS3, I can't wait to see my next mod played on the console.