Epic building games to be played 'for hundreds or thousands of hours'

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says that studio is still actively working on at least two game projects, with Fortnite demanding 90 members of their staff.

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Between some high-profile departures and Microsoft's acquisition of the Gears of War franchise, it seems that Epic Games hasn't put much focus on games lately. It has ambitious plans for its Unreal Engine that has been taking up most of its press, but CEO and founder Tim Sweeney says that the studio still has games in the pipeline.

"We're building Fortnite, which is a bigger and way cooler game than we imagined," Sweeney told Polygon. "It started out as an internal game jam project at Epic and has grown over time. We have a combination of a great building game, an action-combat game and with some [light] elements of an MMO. We'll be saying more about that in the coming months.

He said Fortnite is taking some lessons from Valve and Riot, by making the game accessible and "giving them a great value with a game that can be played for hundreds or thousands of hours."

More than 90 Epic employees are working on Fortnite right now, according to Sweeney, and other teams are working on projects of their own. One in particular, in early development, "will continue the Epic tradition of pushing high-end, leading-edge graphics."

As for the Gears franchise, Sweeney said that was simply an issue of being focused in a different direction. Epic is more interested in fully connected games now, so a big-budget single-player experience isn't something they were interested in pursuing. "The core Gears values are really tied to being big event-based, single-player console games with awesome cover mechanics and other things that really didn't translate into the future approach we were taking with online games, and competitive and cooperative multiplayer," he said. "Because we weren't planning on building any more Gears games we were just going to let that sit on the shelf for a decade or more, in case it had any future value to us."

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  • reply
    March 27, 2014 10:00 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Epic building games to be played 'for hundreds or thousands of hours'.

    Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says that studio is still actively working on at least two game projects, with Fortnite demanding 90 members of their staff.

    • reply
      March 27, 2014 10:11 AM

      Give us UT4 please!!! With UT3's fantastic, on the edge gameplay and none of its cheesy wanna be campaign!!

    • reply
      March 27, 2014 10:24 AM

      Isn't that any grind-y, farm-y, level up game like Borderlands, Diablo, etc.?

    • reply
      March 27, 2014 10:25 AM

      After yesterday's bombshell news, this is how I had to translate the article:

      "...a bigger and way cooler game than we imagined.."
      We haven't been trying very hard, so the bar is currently pretty low.

      "We have a combination of a great building game, an action-combat game and with some [light] elements of an MMO. We'll be saying more about that in the coming months."
      It's Hellgate, but with crafting.

      "...giving them a great value with a game that can be played for hundreds or thousands of hours."
      We want to be like Valve and still be loved for games, even when we stop releasing games *cough*UT4*cough*

      "...will continue the Epic tradition of pushing high-end, leading-edge graphics."
      Yeah, but for what platform? Only thing they'd been pushing has been mobile.

      "Epic is more interested in fully connected games now..."
      We're talking to FB too

      "other things that really didn't translate into the future approach we were taking with online games, and competitive and cooperative multiplayer,"
      We want you to 'Like' things, do micro transactions and invite 20 friends to press a button for you to continue playing.


      Translation:
      We want to be bought out by FB, have the Unreal Engine become the Oculus VR engine, and we're even developing an awesome Hellgate clone that has crafting in it!

      • reply
        March 27, 2014 2:44 PM

        I have to wonder how much of this is due to Tencent's influence, and how much of it is due to someone on the business side giving a pep talk to the effect of, "Multiplatform console titles are a dead end, and we need to start chasing the whales of free-to-play games by keeping players compulsively engaged, just like Riot is doing with League of Legends! And Fortnite is going to be our first step towards that!"

        Back in 2012, there was the story that Fortnite could be an always-on game, which Tanya Jessen shrugged off as "not set in stone yet... dependent on gameplay and platform... can't say for sure one way or another today", ad nauseam: http://www.shacknews.com/article/74886/fortnite-could-have-always-online-requirement

        This is not the Epic that produced the Unreal games, and it's not the Epic that produced Gears of War games. I guess that they decided that the only way the studio side of Epic would be viable was to take it in this outrageously disgusting Facebook-esque, Riot-esque, Tencent-esque direction. Which makes me wonder if the engine licensing business side has realized yet that megapublishers are doing their best to AVOID having to license Unreal Engine 4, and that from the indie side, Unreal Engine 4's subscription program isn't alone, and CryEngine undercut them on licensing costs: http://www.shacknews.com/article/83623/cryengine-to-offer-subscription-for-999month

    • reply
      March 27, 2014 11:53 AM

      How about a proper remake of Unreal 2's XMP multiplayer that you so obviously buried because it made UT2's MP look like a joke.

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        March 27, 2014 1:40 PM

        That was a fun mod. Man it's amazing the anemic state of the PC shooter multiplayer now. And the technology is insane too, but people are making stuff for phones.

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        March 27, 2014 3:07 PM

        U2XMP!!!!!

    • reply
      March 27, 2014 2:02 PM

      arent these the bulletstorm guys? need to remove that GFWL bros

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