Unreal Engine 4 "years away", says Rein

By Robert Purchese Published 9 April, 2008

It'll be for the next generation.

Epic Games has told Eurogamer it plans to release Unreal Engine 4 alongside the next generation of hardware.

"It's just a research project today," Mark Rein, boss of Epic, told us. "Our plan is that it will be aimed at the next generation so it is many years away."

Epic technology boffin Tim Sweeney has previously said development proper will not begin until later this year. The fourth version of its engine will exclusively target new consoles, and then PCs.

Gears of War was responsible for bringing widespread acclaim to Unreal Engine 3, which has since been used to power games such as BioShock and Mass Effect.

It is now licensed by nearly all the major publishers for their games, as creation cycles and costs increase, forcing developers to look for third-party solutions. Mark Rein would not be pushed on discussing pricing in any way, shape or form.

But not all have been bowled over by UE3. Silicon Knights famously sought legal compensation after it claimed losing considerable time developing Too Human as it had to make numerous modifications to the engine; it claimed Epic was too busy making its own games to help.

However, this was far from a one-sided argument.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (10) 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

    While no argument has only one side by definition, Epic failed to deliver contractually bound features and failed to deliver even the cut down version on time.

    A cynic may take the view that they over promised and under delivered to tie up the developers into contracts and a delivery pipeline it would be very expensive to move away from - ensuring continued support from the developers, albeit under duress.

    Hopefully the difficulties will ensure that the market takes an active interest in the alternatives (Cryengine 2, Rage etc.) resulting in games that don't all look the same (and use anti-aliasing;-).

  • penhalion #2 4 years ago

    Silicon Knights had/have a valid point. At one point it was starting to get to a point where Epic simply sold you the engine, pointed you to the forums and took your money. A lot of games companies who bought it were starting to get pissed off.

    Luckily Epic seem to have realised that pissing off your core customers (each license costs an extortionate amount) was a bad business plan. Suddenly we got a flood of engine improvements that were first seen in gears.

  • crozon #3 4 years ago

    how do you develop for the next gen consoles and then the PC now. Don't get it. Don't you have to prototype your new engine on a PC, since you don't have this new hardware.

  • Dizzy #4 4 years ago

    "Luckily Epic seem to have realised that pissing off your core customers (each license costs an extortionate amount) was a bad business plan. Suddenly we got a flood of engine improvements that were first seen in gears. "

    Indeed... that Silicon Knight lawsuit has really pushed them to be a lot more license friendly.

  • Xerx3s #5 4 years ago

    crozon: They have tech people analysing where the tech will be going in the future (hence the research). Programming languages will stay roughly the same. They will also have a big say in how next gen consoles will be developed, as they did with the 360.

  • Moz #6 4 years ago

    Can't be that many years off, i've heard rumblings that MS starting developing software for the next xbox about 6 months ago. Personally expecting the next xbox to appear in 2010

  • miiiguel #7 4 years ago

    source?

  • LosCapitan #8 4 years ago

    "While no argument has only one side by definition, Epic failed to deliver contractually bound features and failed to deliver even the cut down version on time. "

    I saw this first comment in the thread and misread the headline as "Unreal Engline 4 years away, says Rein" and thought it was an admission of sorts... :-) Tricky thing punctuation!

    (eats, chutes and then leafs)

  • Matfink #9 4 years ago

    Four years seems a tad long for re-doing the textures and messing up the net code..?

  • Wyrm #10 4 years ago

    Unreal Engine 4 may be years away, but you can play the game right now!