Epic "defrauded" industry, alleges Dyack

Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack has alleged that Epic "defrauded" an entire chunk of the games industry when promoting Unreal Engine 3.

He claims the four-year development period for Too Human was so long because Epic was misleading about what Unreal Engine 3 could accomplish.

"[Too Human has] been a four-year development cycle and it would have been out even quicker, but we had to re-write the engine because of all the Epic stuff," Dyack told Develop.

"The trial is proceeding; we feel really good about our claims, and we're hopeful that justice will be done. We all feel really strongly that they have defrauded us, and a major portion of the industry."

Silicon Knights took legal action against Epic Games in July 2007, accusing the company of failing to deliver development kits in a timely fashion, not providing enough support, and focusing too much on Gears of War.

Epic said there had been plenty of access to SDKs, and deflected attacks by claiming Silicon Knights had shown Unreal Engine 3 to unauthorised parties. Epic also claimed SK used the engine to make a game for SEGA, breaching the terms of the licensing deal.

Too Human is due out across Europe on 29th August. You can expect our review very soon.