More than 5 new EA titles to have Unreal Engine 3 under the hood

40 Comments by Jason Dobson Apr 8th 2008 9:30AM
Filed under: Business

Electronic Arts likes what it has seen from Unreal Engine 3, so much so that the company has extended its relationship with Epic, giving EA the rights to incorporate the popular middleware solution into more than five upcoming titles.

As to what games this impacts EA won't say, only noting that each of the games are currently in development. The company first inked an agreement with Epic in 2006 to use the technology, which has since made its way into such recent titles as Medal of Honor Airborne and last month's fist-pounding Army of Two, proving once and for all that even great technology doesn't make the game.

Tags: army-of-two, armyoftwo, ea, electronic-arts, electronicarts, epic, medal-of-honor-airborne, medalofhonorairborne, unreal-engine, unreal-engine-3, unrealengine, unrealengine3

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

xFenixKnightx: Apr 8th 2008; 9:45AM

Medal of Honor yes but I dont remember seeing,

"Powered by Unreal Technology"

on the opening sequence of Army of Two like on other games such as Bioshiock. Well, yeah I guess it was on the UE3 but not as polished as EPIC polishes their games.

bigsofty: Apr 8th 2008; 10:13AM

If its EA, then I dont buy, period.

dcrooks: Apr 8th 2008; 10:51AM

Army of Two was UE3 based. It references using Unreal Tech in the back of the manual, and in the credits in the game.

xFenixKnightx: Apr 8th 2008; 10:56AM

Oh, ok yea I never really payed attn guess it was a cross between UE3 and some in house engine. Thanks.

copa: Apr 8th 2008; 9:51AM

Unreal is awesome, but I really wish that Id would get a competing console engine onto the scene to push the market forward.

xFenixKnightx: Apr 8th 2008; 9:54AM

I know, what happened to the Id Tech 5 Engine? It was supposed to render a huge amount of textures without causing any performance issues on the console...

EMOruffino: Apr 8th 2008; 12:30PM

@bigsofty

SKATE was the only "good" EA game... come on...

capt_carl: Apr 8th 2008; 1:26PM

I don't think Carmack is done with id Tech 5 yet. I'd like to see more Source-based games. It may be dated a bit, but damn it still looks amazing.

Obie: Apr 8th 2008; 9:52AM

Unreal is nice, but there is a certain "look" to the engine that makes it stand out...but not always in a good way. Everything seems bulky and shiny....or am I just going crazy?

ScottyGEE32: Apr 8th 2008; 10:30AM

You're forgetting bloom-y.

Obie: Apr 8th 2008; 10:31AM

Oh yeah and brown-filtery.

Ian: Apr 8th 2008; 10:36AM

Blame this on the modelers and the artists. Look is not inherent to the engine, its inherent to the models and textures.

Obie: Apr 8th 2008; 10:37AM

I agree. Gears of War is an example of how nice the engine can look. But then you have games like Turok that just look generic.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force): Apr 8th 2008; 10:49AM

OMG, Obie, you're right... all Unreal Engine 3 games look alike...

http://www.joystiq.com/photos/grimm/

http://games.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/1176/Lost-Odyssey/

http://www.joystiq.com/photos/the-agency/

[.sm0ke.]: Apr 8th 2008; 5:36PM

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=224

Bleu: Apr 8th 2008; 9:54AM

FUCK EA! and leave the unreal engine alone. It being in your hands your would probably mess it up as well.

Their leeches I tell you Leeches!

Beatz: Apr 8th 2008; 9:54AM

Rock Band 2 to use Unreal Engine - confirmed!

R2P2: Apr 8th 2008; 10:03AM

"More than 5" titles? How many more? Why not "At least 6" or just plain "Six"?

Worst Review Ever: Apr 8th 2008; 10:20AM

How can something be less than 3 but more than 6?

dcrooks: Apr 8th 2008; 10:49AM

You didn't read the post, did you?

Worst Review Ever: Apr 8th 2008; 10:52AM

You never watched "Arrested Development", did you?

baby sea tuna: Apr 8th 2008; 2:13PM

What are you, some kind of Maritime Lawyer or something?

dcrooks: Apr 8th 2008; 2:34PM

Funnily enough, I have watched it, and was referencing it (i.e. "You didn't read the plea offer, did you?")

Worst Review Ever: Apr 8th 2008; 3:11PM

dcrooks,

Nice.

Dale: Apr 8th 2008; 10:21AM

Odd... UE3 instead of Renderware, which they own?

kaneda: Apr 8th 2008; 10:34AM

Unreal Madden 2009

xFenixKnightx: Apr 8th 2008; 10:44AM

I wouldnt be surprised, especially with the new updates the UE3 has been given (shown at GDC) and lets face it...Madden needs a new engine.

Stumper: Apr 8th 2008; 10:43AM

EA can't make an FPS worth balls. Battlefield 2142 had potential, but it's absolutely lacking, very buggy, and they killed the only thing about the game that made it worth playing (pod surfing).

Rule 1: never buy a videogame based on a movie
Rule 2: never watch a movie based on a videogame
Rule 3: never buy a wii exclusive game that wasn't made by nintendo
Rule 4: never buy an fps if freaking ea made it

JakubK666 (Ninja Defence Force): Apr 8th 2008; 10:48AM

Regarding Rule 3 - Umbrella Chronicles looks quite good.

Ted: Apr 8th 2008; 10:49AM

*looks at shelf*

well of the EA games I have, I really like Battlefield 2 (although I don't like their blister pack milking, or the annoying server browser) and for all the complaints on the internet, I love Crysis.

Airborne was massively, massively disappointing though. So much potential... *sigh*

Stumper: Apr 8th 2008; 11:00AM

Jakub:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2883-Zero-Punctuation-Resident-Evil-Umbrella-Chronicles
...just saying (wear headphones)
Ted:
Crysis was *developed* by Crytek (The guys who made Far Cry and the upcoming Far Cry 2). Thank them for it not being broken, not EA.

Anticrawl: Apr 8th 2008; 11:00AM

EA doesn't make many games other than their sports games. They PUBLISH a lot of games, DICE makes (develops) Battlefield. No More Heroes for the Wii was great as was Goldeneye for the 64.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force): Apr 8th 2008; 11:56AM

Anticrawl, DICE was purchased outright by EA on a tuesday, closed on a wednesday. They kept the name and restaffed. So DICE is EA.

jimmygotsmack: Apr 8th 2008; 1:24PM

Why did you post a zero punctuation link, first off, he actually says he enjoyed the game. Second off, he's a bloody comedian. If you take his review as fact, they you probably believe Stephen Colbert is indeed crazy, and completely lost sight of the joke.

In any case, yes, the first 2 work quite well, and so does the last one. What happend EA, you use to make such strange and original games, a very long time ago....

hey_big_dck psn:fuliano626: Apr 8th 2008; 11:43AM

uh does this mean ea wants to buy epic now?

jc: Apr 8th 2008; 11:57AM

Great more "shinieness" in future games. Is'nt everyone done with the unreal engine?? Walls and the ground should not be shiny, only a few games have I seen really used this engine effectivley with everything looking liked polished chrome.

Sir Fidlious Wong (Zeon Defense Force): Apr 8th 2008; 2:18PM

Most games that use the engine don't tweak the material settings...

Amazing the difference that makes. But it's okay, Grimm hasn't any shininess and uses UE3... but it's the engine, not the deadlines and pressure to reach dates that keep studios from doing that extra step.

jimmygotsmack: Apr 8th 2008; 1:26PM

So how many of them will actually be good?

Gurei: Apr 8th 2008; 3:39PM

BEWARE EPIC,EA LIKES YOU
and what EA likes,EA TAKES.

Schmobu: Apr 8th 2008; 5:45PM

the image should have had NFS car with EA on the hood and next to it powered by Unreal 3

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