CARY, N.C. – Epic Games, Inc. announces an agreement with Arc System Works Co., Ltd. to license Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine 3 technology for the development of the latest game in its successful “Guilty Gear” franchise. The agreement was brokered by Epic Games Japan, which supports the company’s licensees locally.

The new title, “Guilty Gear Xrd –SIGN–” and its adoption of Unreal Engine 3 were announced at “Arc System Works Festival,” the 25th anniversary event of the renowned developer held at Pacifico Yokohama in Japan.

The “Guilty Gear” series also celebrated its 15th anniversary. Beloved by fans of fighting games worldwide, the “Guilty Gear” franchise is being rebooted and stepping into a new generation with the power of Unreal Engine 3.

“I have been a big fan of the ‘Guilty Gear’ series for a long time. Its marriage of smooth, beautiful 2D animation with deep gameplay has been a pinnacle of the 2D fighting genre,” said Taka Kawasaki, territory manager of Epic Games Japan.

“Arc System Works has taken Unreal Engine 3 to new artistic and technical heights with this new game, which shows the range of the engine’s capabilities. I am thrilled to see how the chemistry of ‘Guilty Gear’ and Unreal Engine 3 will entertain fans all over the world.”

Check out the first trailer for “Guilty Gear Xrd – SIGN” at http://epic.gm/guiltygear.

About Unreal Engine

Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics technology, world-class toolset and scalability across PC, console and mobile platforms. Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for creating high-quality games, applications, training simulations, visualizations, digital films and animated entertainment. Powering hundreds of games and integrated with two dozen leading middleware technologies, UE3 holds more than 20 technology awards, including eight Game Developer Front Line Awards and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards. The Unreal Engine also owns a seat in the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame. Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), winner of multiple Best of E3 2012 awards, offers unprecedented graphical capabilities and workflow improvements that provide unparalleled accessibility for developers building the next generation of games and applications. For more information, visit http://www.unrealengine.com and follow @UnrealEngine.

About Epic Games

Established in 1991, Epic Games, Inc. develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company is responsible for the bestselling “Unreal” series of games, the blockbuster “Gears of War” franchise and the groundbreaking “Infinity Blade” line of mobile games. Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine technology has won dozens of awards and is available for licensing. Epic is continually recruiting top talent for its studios located in North Carolina, Washington, Utah, Poland, Korea and Japan. For more informatoin, visit http://www.epicgames.com and follow https://twitter.com/epicgames/.

Epic, Epic Games, Gears of War, Infinity Blade, Unreal, Unreal Development Kit, UDK, Unreal Engine, UE3 and UE4 and are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

CARY, N.C. – Epic Games and Mozilla have continued a close collaboration first revealed during last month’s Game Developers Conference to release “Epic Citadel” on the Web running in HTML5. No plug-ins or added components are needed to experience the free app.

“Epic Citadel” is built using standards-based technologies like HTML5, WebGL and JavaScript, and should work in any standards-based browser implementing those features. For optimal performance, Epic recommends loading “Epic Citadel” at http://www.unrealengine.com/html5 using Firefox Nightly version 23 or above, which includes optimizations for asm.js, a highly-optimizable subset of JavaScript pioneered by Mozilla, whose performance can rival native code.

According to Mozilla’s recent blog post, “With Mozilla’s latest innovations in JavaScript, game developers and publishers can now take advantage of fast performance that rivals native while leveraging scale of the Web, without the additional costs associated with third-party plugins. This allows them to distribute visually stunning and performance intensive games to billions of people more easily and cost effectively than before.”

Engineering teams at Mozilla and Epic ported the award-winning Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) to the Web in just four days using the powerful combination of asm.js and Emscripten, which enables developers to compile C++ code into JavaScript.

In addition to HTML5, “Epic Citadel” is available for iOS and Android, and it has been demonstrated for Windows RT as well. “Epic Citadel” also ships as a developer resource within Epic’s Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of UE3, and that offering extends to the custom Oculus-ready UDK released in March.

“Epic Citadel” was built with the same UE3 tools and technologies used to develop best-selling PC, console and mobile games. Features include:

• Amazing visuals. Through the latest advances in Unreal Engine 3 technology, “Epic Citadel” pushes the envelope for modern game visuals on the Web.
• Realistic reflections and animations. Environment mapping and other high-end rendering techniques produce lifelike reflections, while vertex deformation and skeletal animation bring trees and banners to life with dynamic movements.
• Global illumination. Unreal Engine 3’s built-in global illumination system, Unreal Lightmass, provides realistic lighting and shadows with minimal development resources.
• Dynamic specular lighting with texture masks. Sophisticated graphics features impart a tangible quality to cobblestone roads and vivid reflective marble surfaces, while lens flares and light coronas add dramatic emphasis when panning across light sources. For more information, visit http://www.unrealengine.com/en/showcase/udk/epic_citadel/.

CARY, N.C. – Epic Games, Inc. has worked with numerous exceptionally talented independent developers to put together the very first Unreal Indie Bundle, giving gamers seven acclaimed, Unreal Engine 3-powered indie games for the price of one. For one week the Unreal Indie Bundle is available for $19.99 (USD), £14.99 (GBP) and €17.99 (EUR) on Steam.

From the tower-defending excitement of Trendy Entertainment’s “Dungeon Defenders” to the abstract first-person puzzling of Toxic Games’ “Q.U.B.E.,” the limited-time Unreal Indie Bundle showcases the great variety of games that can be developed using Epic’s industry-leading Unreal Engine technology.

Here’s a rundown of the titles included in the bundle, which launches today:

“The Ball” – Teotl Studios
“The Ball” is a first person action-adventure game featuring a captivating single-player campaign. When a swashbuckling archaeologist working on a dormant Mexican volcano gets stuck in a cavern, it doesn’t take long to realize there is much more to this exotic place.

“Dungeon Defenders” – Trendy Entertainmen
Save the land of Etheria from an Ancient Evil in the tower defense action-RPG “Dungeon Defenders.” Create a hero from one of four distinct classes to fight back wave after wave of enemies by summoning defenses and directly participating in the action-packed combat.

“Primal Carnage” – Lukewarm Media
“Primal Carnage” is an online multiplayer shooter that engrosses players in skilled PVP combat, team-based strategy and savage class-oriented matches unlike any previously experienced. Be it an armed human mercenary or a cunning dinosaur, “Primal Carnage” unleashes the inner beast in anyone who seeks to survive amongst the fittest.

“Q.U.B.E.” – Toxic Games
Set in a mysterious and abstract sterile environment, “Q.U.B.E.” (Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion) is a first-person puzzle game that challenges players to navigate each level by manipulating coloured cubes that surround them.

“Sanctum” –Coffee Stain Studios
You think Tower Defense games are all about building? You thought wrong. Sanctum is not an average tower defense title. When the havoc starts, join the fray! As a pioneer of the first-person shooter - tower defense genre, “Sanctum” takes the best of both worlds to deliver an epic, one-of-a-kind experience.

“Unmechanical” – Teotl Studios and Talawa Games
“Unmechanical” is a puzzle adventure that combines tricky puzzle solving, alluring exploration and an engrossing atmosphere. Set in a fantastic world of flesh, rock and steel, the journey to freedom requires solving a great variety of puzzling challenges. While it’s easy to pick up and play, later challenges may prove very difficult indeed.

“Waves” – Squid in a Box
Shooter fans deserve more. And those who haven’t discovered the pleasure of twin-stick destruction deserve an entry point. Introducing “Waves,” a twin-stick shooter that can be played by anyone, but with a high enough skill threshold to keep even the most hardened shooter fan entertained.

For more information about the Unreal Indie Bundle, visit http://store.steampowered.com/sub/27231.

About Unreal Engine

Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics technology, world-class toolset and scalability across PC, console and mobile platforms. Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for creating high-quality games, applications, training simulations, visualizations, digital films and animated entertainment. Powering hundreds of games and integrated with two dozen leading middleware technologies, UE3 holds more than 20 technology awards, including eight Game Developer Front Line Awards and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards. The Unreal Engine also owns a seat in the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame. Unreal Engine 4 (UE4), winner of multiple Best of E3 2012 awards, offers unprecedented graphical capabilities and workflow improvements that provide unparalleled accessibility for developers building the next generation of games and applications. For more information, visit http://www.unrealengine.com and follow @UnrealEngine.

About Epic Games

Established in 1991, Epic Games, Inc. develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company is responsible for the bestselling “Unreal” series of games, the blockbuster “Gears of War” franchise and the groundbreaking “Infinity Blade” line of mobile games. Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine technology has won dozens of awards and is available for licensing. Epic is continually recruiting top talent for its studios located in North Carolina, Washington, Utah, Poland, Korea and Japan. For more informatoin, visit http://www.epicgames.com and follow https://twitter.com/epicgames/.

Epic, Epic Games, Gears of War, Infinity Blade, Unreal, Unreal Development Kit, UDK, Unreal Engine, UE3 and UE4 and are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Three world-renowned DJs will perform at Epic Games’ ECGC 2013 Opening Night Party, kicking off the East Coast Games Conference (ECGC) in style on Wednesday, April 24, at the Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh, N.C. As a platinum sponsor of ECGC, Epic is bringing performances by Gramatik, Cherub and HeRobust as well as open bar access to registered ECGC attendees.

“Epic is showing incredible support for this year’s East Coast Games Conference, and this party is a must-attend event,” said Walter Rotenberry, CEO, ECGC. “Video game creators of all kinds will come together under one roof to enjoy like-minded company as well as a great line-up of talented chill out, electro-pop and downtempo musical artists.”

In addition, numerous members of Epic’s staff are speaking at ECGC and will be available to meet with attendees at Epic’s booth throughout the show.

ECGC provides an opportunity for market leaders, new developers and everyone in-between to learn new skills, connect and see into the future of the industry. The conference will feature panels and lectures for developers, an expo with playable upcoming games, a career lounge and many opportunities to network and socialize with some of the brightest minds in game development.

Access to the opening night party, expo floor, career lounge and conference sessions can be obtained with an ECGC conference pass. Epic Games sessions and speakers include:

April 24, 2013

“Making it in Games”
Tim Johnson
Director, Talent Acquisition
10:00 - 11:00 a.m., 305A

“Once Upon a Time: Giving Players the Freedom to Create Their Own Story”
Jim Brown
Lead Level Designer
4:30 - 5:30 p.m., 301B

April 25, 2013

“Building Epic Worlds through the Strengths of Artsourcing”
Chris Mielke
Program Manager
10:00 - 11:00 a.m., 301B

“Working Your Way into the Industry, from QA to Art”
Chris Devens
Environment Artist
11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m., Career Lounge

To view to the full lineup of speakers and sessions, visit: http://www.ecgconf.com/tracks/.

For more information or to register for the East Coast Games Conference, visit: http://www.ecgconf.com/.

RALEIGH, NC – The United States Air Force (USAF) has certified the ARA Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) Web Player, a product of the Virtual Heroes Division of ARA (Applied Research Associates, Inc.), for use on USAF computers. This certification opens the way for Web-based Air Force training courses using advanced content created with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3.

The ARA UE3 Web Player allows content created in-engine to be delivered and displayed within a web browser. With this plug-in, realistic 3D real-time simulations and interactive modules are now a possibility as part of web-based Air Force training courses.

“Placing the ARA UE3 Web Player on the Air Force Evaluated/Approved Products List opens up a wide range of immersive training opportunities,” said Randy Brown, Virtual Heroes Division Manager. “Now Air Force organizations can deliver Unreal Engine-based, real-time training packages on the Air Force network through a simple browser connection,” Mr. Brown continued. “The exciting thing is that this content can be developed by anyone using Epic’s Unreal Development Kit (UDK) or UE3.”

The ARA UE3 Web Player serves as a foundation for deploying Air Force approved training material to its users. This includes the capability to stream content published with the free, publicly available UDK. The Unreal Engine is the widely recognized leader of 3D game engines due to its advanced graphics capabilities and powerful developer toolsets.

The Air Force has certified installation of the UE3 Web Player’s ActiveX plug-in for Internet Explorer. The Web Player also supports Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.

ARA’s Virtual Heroes Division has won multiple awards for its simulations, serious games and 3D virtual worlds using Unreal Engine technology to provide interactive learning solutions for healthcare, federal systems and corporate training. In 2012, Virtual Heroes partnered with Epic Games to become the sole licensor of UE3 technology to departments, agencies and units of the U.S. and allied governments. Virtual Heroes provides support to government developers through the Unreal Government Network (UGN). More information about the UE3 Web Player and Virtual Heroes is available at http://www.virtualheroes.com.

About Applied Research Associates, Inc. & Virtual Heroes

Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA) was founded 1979, in Albuquerque, N.M., to solve problems of national importance by providing science and engineering research, technical support services. The company’s applied research delivers scientific solutions for national defense, homeland security, aerospace, healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing. With 1,300 Employee Owners at locations in the U.S. and Canada, ARA offers a broad range of technical expertise in defense technologies, civil engineering, computer software and simulation, systems analysis, biomedical engineering, environmental technologies, and blast testing and measurement.

The Virtual Heroes Division of Applied Research Associates, Inc. creates collaborative interactive learning solutions for healthcare, federal systems, and corporate training markets. Advanced Learning Technologies (ALT) leverage simulation learning and digital games-based training paradigms to accelerate learning, increase user proficiency, and reduce training costs. Virtual Heroes is located in Raleigh, N.C., and in Orlando, Fla. in the Central Florida Research Park.

For more information, please visit: http://www.virtualheroes.com and http://www.ara.com.

About Unreal Engine

Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics, best-of-breed tools and scalability across multiple platforms. Unreal Engine 3’s highly mature toolset and content pipeline consistently evolve along with its advanced mobile features, multi-core processor support, optimizations for numerous platforms and massive world support. Unreal Engine 3 is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for computer and video games, mobile games and applications, training simulations, 3D visualizations, digital films and animated entertainment. Integrated with two dozen leading middleware technologies, Unreal Engine 3 holds more than 20 technology awards, including eight Game Developer Front Line Awards and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards. Additional information on Unreal Engine 3 can be obtained at http://www.unrealengine.com.

Epic, Epic Games, Unreal, Unreal Development Kit, UDK, Unreal Engine and UE3 are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. All rights reserved.

CARY, N.C. – Epic Games, Inc.. announces that NVIDIA is now exclusively using its breakthrough Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) game engine to create product presentations. The reveal of the company’s initiative came during the announcement of NVIDIA’s highly anticipated Project SHIELD portable gaming device at CES 2013, which featured a UE4-powered rendering of the SHIELD’s full-size, console-grade controller and Tegra 4 GPU.

NVIDIA heavily relied on the Unreal Matinee cinematic system to create the fly-through video which provided the world’s first glimpse of Project SHIELD and played during their CES keynote. This is the first time NVIDIA engineers have used a third-party game engine instead of their own internal engine for visual product demonstrations.

“As a long-established Unreal Engine partner, we understand the sheer power that Unreal Engine 4 puts into developers’ hands,” said Tony Tamasi, senior vice president of content and technology at NVIDIA. “We immediately took the opportunity to utilize UE4’s high-end graphics features and incredible workflow to showcase how our graphics hardware is pushing the industry forward.”

“NVIDIA are always on the cutting edge, and we were thrilled to be a part of their awesome Project SHIELD introduction,” said Mark Rein, vice president and co-founder of Epic Games. “The visuals their team are producing using Unreal Engine 4 in real time are fantastic, and they’re already exceeding some of the best pre-rendered visuals of only a few short years ago.”

About Unreal Engine

Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics, best-of-breed toolset and scalability across major platforms. Operating on nine platforms, including PC, consoles and mobile devices, Unreal Engine 3 is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for creating high-quality games, applications, training simulations, 3D visualizations, digital films and animated entertainment. Powering hundreds of games and integrated with two dozen leading middleware technologies, Unreal Engine 3 holds more than 20 technology awards, including seven Game Developer Front Line Awards and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards. The Unreal Engine also holds a seat in the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame. Epic recently revealed Unreal Engine 4, winner of multiple Best of E3 2012 awards, which offers unprecedented workflow improvements and graphical capabilities that provide unparalleled accessibility for developers building the next generation of games and applications. For additional information, please visit http://www.unrealengine.com and follow @UnrealEngine.

About Epic Games

Established in 1991, Epic Games, Inc. develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company is responsible for the bestselling “Unreal” series of games, the blockbuster “Gears of War” franchise and the groundbreaking “Infinity Blade” line of mobile games. Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine technology has won dozens of awards and is available for licensing. Epic is continually recruiting top talent for its studios located in North Carolina, Washington, Utah, Poland, Korea and Japan. For more information, visit http://www.epicgames.com and follow https://twitter.com/epicgames/.

Epic, Epic Games, Gears of War, Infinity Blade, Unreal, Unreal Development Kit, UDK, Unreal Engine, UE3 and UE4 and are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

BIRMINGHAM, UK – Epic Games, Inc., creators of award-winning games and game technology, announced during the final day of the Gadget Show Live that Dead Shark Triplepunch, the team from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, has won Make Something Unreal Live 2013 with its game Epigenesis. All teams participating in MSUL 2013 developed their projects using Epic’s Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of the award-winning Unreal Engine 3.

After an intense, fast-paced and at times nail-biting six days at Gadget Show Live, Dead Shark Triplepunch emerged victorious after impressing the five members of the judging panel and visitors to the show with the playability and technological prowess of its game. Epigenesis is a multiplayer ball game played over rooftops and with the added twist that when a player scores a goal, they get to plant a seed which will over the course of the game, change the playing environment.

Judges praised Epigenesis for its ingenious concept, engaging gameplay and clever use of a scientific concept inspired by the theme for this year’s competition.

The team extensively play-tested the game at Gadget Show Live and following advice from games industry experts and advisors from the Wellcome Trust, they spent time developing the scientific aspects of the gameplay over the course of the show. On finals day on Sunday, they were able to present a very polished version of the game to an audience of the judges, hand-picked industry gurus and show visitors.

“Dead Shark Triplepunch was always a strong contender in this year’s competition, and I thought they demonstrated maturity and cohesion throughout Gadget Show Live, plus a much-needed ability to keep calm under pressure,” says Mike Gamble, European Territory Manager at Epic Games.

He also revealed that the high standard of games in this year’s Make Something Unreal Live competition was such that Epic Games would be also awarding Unreal Engine 3 licences to both Dead Shark Triplepunch and the second-placed game, Polymorph, from Kairos Games, to enable both teams to release their titles commercially as soon as possible. “From the first couple of days at the show, we’ve said that all four finalist games have the potential to be released commercially. We believe that our top two placed teams should be able to realise that ambition and granting the Unreal Engine 3 licence gives them a clear route to market.”

For Dead Shark Triplepunch, project leader Michael Levall said: “We’ve had the most fantastic support from people that helped us to win this competition. We couldn’t have done it without the help we’ve had from our college, the Blekinge Institute, and Netport, who gave us the use of an office. Then there’s Josh Randall, our scientific mentor from the Sanger Institute, and our studio mentors Splash Damage. Right from the start, Splash Damage told us how important it was to playtest the game externally as much as possible – and boy, were they right!”

The theme for this year’s contest ‘Mendelian Inheritance: genetics and genomics’ was set by the Wellcome Trust, which supported the competition this year and made four of its scientists available to the teams as mentors. Although responsibility for developing the final games lay with the teams themselves, the mentors were on hand to give guidance and a unique insight into how the games could be enhanced from a science perspective.

Iain Dodgeon, Broadcast and Games Manager at the Wellcome Trust and a member of the judging panel, said: “This has been an exciting initiative to be involved with and we’re delighted it has uncovered fresh talent in the games industry. Dead Shark Triplepunch has shown how it’s possible to draw creative inspiration from science, whilst never losing sight of the fact that they are producing a game that sets out to entertain. The collaboration builds on the Trust’s ambition to bring science into the culture of games and support the next generation of developers.”

Dr Josh Randall, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and science mentor to Dead Shark Triplepunch, said, “Developing a game involves a lot of detailed work, research and expertise, not unlike science. It has been fascinating to see how Epigenesis, which draws on epigenetics, an area of science that looks at how expression of genes can be regulated, has evolved as the competition progressed. It’s been a pleasure to mentor such a talented team; they have a bright future ahead of them.”

Dead Shark Triplepunch was presented with both a commercial Unreal Engine 3 and Unreal Engine 4 licence for PC digital distribution as the main prize in this year’s competition. This will enable the team to publish Epigenesis commercially in its own name – many previous Make Something Unreal winners have gone on to become fully-fledged independent games studios.

For the other three teams, second-placed Kairos Games, and finalists Team Summit and Static Games, disappointment at not winning was tempered by the knowledge that they had competed in one of the hardest-fought Make Something Unreal contests ever held.

“We hope that all this year’s teams will continue to work on their games ,” added Mike Gamble. “We’ve had four excellent contenders here at Gadget Show Live, who have worked under intense conditions to complete their game demos. They all have the potential to be successful in the games industry and we wish them all well for the future.”

About Unreal Engine

Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics, best-of-breed toolset and scalability across major platforms. Operating on nine platforms, including PC, consoles and mobile devices, Unreal Engine 3 is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for creating high-quality games, applications, training simulations, 3D visualizations, digital films and animated entertainment. Powering hundreds of games and integrated with two dozen leading middleware technologies, Unreal Engine 3 holds more than 20 technology awards, including seven Game Developer Front Line Awards and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards. The Unreal Engine also holds a seat in the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame. Epic recently revealed Unreal Engine 4, winner of multiple Best of E3 2012 awards, which offers unprecedented workflow improvements and graphical capabilities that provide unparalleled accessibility for developers building the next generation of games and applications. For additional information, please visit http://www.unrealengine.com and follow @UnrealEngine.

About Epic Games

Established in 1991, Epic Games, Inc. develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company is responsible for the bestselling “Unreal” series of games, the blockbuster “Gears of War” franchise and the groundbreaking “Infinity Blade” line of mobile games. Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine technology has won dozens of awards and is available for licensing. Epic is continually recruiting top talent for its studios located in North Carolina, Washington, Utah, Maryland, Poland, Korea and Japan. Additional information about Epic can be obtained at http://www.epicgames.com.

About Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/

Epic, Epic Games, Gears of War, Infinity Blade, Unreal, Unreal Developer Network, UDN, Unreal Development Kit, UDK, Unreal Engine, UE3, UE4 and Unreal Tournament are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

BIRMINGHAM, UK – Epic Games, Inc., creators of award-winning games and game technology, announced from the Gadget Show Live, that Dead Shark Triplepunch, the winning team at Make Something Unreal Live 2013, has won a host of hardware prizes in addition to the main award of a commercial Unreal Engine 4 licence. The team, from Belkinge Institute of Technology in Sweden, blew away MSUL judges with their game Epigenesis, which was developed with Epic’s Unreal Development Kit (UDK), the free edition of the award-winning Unreal Engine 3.

In a surprise move, Epic Games also announced that Dead Shark Triplepunch and second-placed team Kairos Games have been given an Unreal Engine 3 licence specifically for the publication of their MSUL 2013 competition games.

After a week in which all four of the final teams in the contest worked on their games non-stop, presenting progress twice a day publicly on the show floor, Dead Shark’s third-person platform game Epigenesis won the votes of the judging panel, industry advisors and the popular vote from visitors to the show.

The judging panel comprised industry legend Peter Molyneux, now head of developer 22Cans; Mike Gamble, Epic’s European Territory Manager; Iain Dodgeon, Broadcast and Games Manager at the Wellcome Trust; Jo Twist, head of games trade body UKIE; Phil Wright, Head of Content Management at NVIDIA,and Matt Hill, deputy editor of T3 magazine.

Thanks to the generosity of the competition’s sponsors, NVIDIA and Logitech, all the finalists will go home with NVIDIA GTX graphics cards and Logitech mice, keyboards and gaming headsets. First placed Dead Shark Triplepunch also wins four of the high-end Seven series headsets donated by manufacturer Turtle Beach.

In an intense week at Gadget Show Live, all four final teams worked against the clock to complete their games inspired by the competition theme ‘Mendelian inheritance: genetics and genomics’, which was set by the Wellcome Trust. On finals day on Sunday, Dead Shark Triplepunch was able to present a very polished version of the game to an audience of the judges, hand-picked industry gurus and visitors to the show. The award of a specific Unreal Engine 3 licence in addition to the first prize UE4 agreement enables the team to complete Epigenesis and publish it through digital channels.

“It’s been clear from the early stages of the competition that Epigenesis has the potential to be a commercially viable game,” says Mike Gamble, European Territory Manager at Epic Games. “In giving Dead Shark Triplepunch a UE3 licence specifically for Epigenesis we want to enable them to bring this title to market in the shortest possible time and see them on their way to becoming a fully-fledged independent games development studio.”

“However, the judges felt that there were two games this year worthy of commercial release in the short term, and so we have also awarded Kairos with a UE3 licence in order to complete and publish its game Polymorph.”

In addition to hardware sponsors NVIDIA and Logitech, this year’s Make Something Unreal Live has also benefited from sponsorship from recruitment consultant MPG Universal, and graphics software specialist bluegfx.

Individual teams were supported by games industry mentors who provided support, advice and reality checks during the six months that the student competitors worked on their games. They could also draw on guidance from scientific advisors supplied by the Wellcome Trust.

Dead Shark Triplepunch were advised by long-established development studio Splash Damage, while Lucid Games, Climax Studios and Ninja Theory looked after the other teams in the final. Giving scientific guidance to the winning team was Josh Randall, leader of the Human Genetics Informatics team at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

“The support from our sponsors and supporters has played a huge part in contributing to the success of Make Something Unreal Live this year,” added Mike Gamble. “Our judges, experts and mentors have been deeply involved with the competition and this in turn helped our competitors to produce some really outstanding work on their games.”

About Unreal Engine

Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics, best-of-breed toolset and scalability across major platforms. Operating on nine platforms, including PC, consoles and mobile devices, Unreal Engine 3 is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for creating high-quality games, applications, training simulations, 3D visualizations, digital films and animated entertainment. Powering hundreds of games and integrated with two dozen leading middleware technologies, Unreal Engine 3 holds more than 20 technology awards, including seven Game Developer Front Line Awards and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards. The Unreal Engine also holds a seat in the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame. Epic recently revealed Unreal Engine 4, winner of multiple Best of E3 2012 awards, which offers unprecedented workflow improvements and graphical capabilities that provide unparalleled accessibility for developers building the next generation of games and applications. For additional information, please visit http://www.unrealengine.com.

About Epic Games

Established in 1991, Epic Games, Inc. develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company is responsible for the bestselling “Unreal” series of games, the blockbuster “Gears of War” franchise and the groundbreaking “Infinity Blade” line of mobile games. Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine technology has won dozens of awards and is available for licensing. Epic is continually recruiting top talent for its studios located in North Carolina, Washington, Utah, Maryland, Poland, Korea and Japan. Additional information about Epic can be obtained at http://www.epicgames.com.

About Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/

Epic, Epic Games, Gears of War, Infinity Blade, Unreal, Unreal Developer Network, UDN, Unreal Development Kit, UDK, Unreal Engine, UE3, UE4 and Unreal Tournament are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epic Games, Inc. in the United States of America and elsewhere. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

CARY, N.C. – This year’s Make Something Unreal Live, run by Epic Games, Inc., reaches its climax at Gadget Show Live this week. The competition invites the most talented videogame developers amongst Europe’s students to create games using Epic’s Unreal Development Kit toolset. Of the 21 teams that originally entered the competition six months ago, four now remain to contest the final showdown over the next six days.

The four finalist teams must work to complete their games on the show floor, starting today, Tuesday April 2nd and finishing on the last day of the show, Sunday April 7th. Twice a day, each team must present progress on the game so far to the judging panel, to a selection of hand-picked industry gurus and to visitors to the show. The industry gurus include Peter Molyneux, Sports Interactive’s Miles Jacobson, Jon Hare of Sensible Soccer fame, and former DMA and RealTime Worlds founder Dave Jones.

All the games in the competition have been created according to the theme ‘Mendelian inheritance: genetics and genomics’ which was set for Make Something Unreal Live 2013 by the Wellcome Trust, which has also supported the contest and provided scientific mentors to the teams.

The finalists are:

Static Games, from Bournemouth University, seven students who take the player on a tour of “Mendel’s Farm”. In its day, Mendel’s Farm was a thriving and popular business which bred the best livestock and grew the best plants. However, over time the farm has deteriorated and Mendel is struggling to manage the farm by himself, and the player’s task is to restore it to its former glory.

Team Summit, from University of Abertay, with four members and a puzzle platform game, “Beings”, aimed at younger players. The central character in “Beings” is a mythical creature facing a series of challenges such as fire, ice, or snow. These obstacles can be overcome through selective breeding with a creature with the right genes - fire-retardant skin, for example.

Kairos Games, which comes from Staffordshire University and numbers nine students. Its title “Polymorph” is a third-person platform game in which a brave amorphous character and its ever-changing offspring evolve and adapt to take on the world around them, taking key evolutionary traits from other species.

Finally, Dead Shark Triplepunch is a team of 10 students from the Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden. Its game, “Epigenesis”, is a fast-paced ball game played on rooftops with gravity cannons and supportive plants that spread across the playfield.

The teams will be judged by a panel which comprises Mike Gamble, European Territory Manager at Epic Games; Dr. Jo Twist, Chair of UKIE; Phil Wright, Head of Content Management at NVIDIA; Iain Dodgeon, Broadcast and Games Manager at the Wellcome Trust; and Matt Hill, Deputy Editor of T3 magazine.

Visitors to the show will also get a chance to have their say by voting for their favourite games of the four, using forms available on Epic Games’ stand at the show.

On the final day of the exhibition, the overall winning team will be announced and awarded with a commercial Unreal Engine 4 licence for PC digital distribution.

“The stage is set for an exciting and closely fought climax to this year’s competition,” says Mike Gamble. “We’ve seen incredibly high-quality work already in the competition and it will be fascinating to see how these four games develop further over the course of the show. “The students have all demonstrated an astonishing commitment to the contest and we at Epic are very proud of what they have managed to achieve with the Unreal Development Kit so far.” Iain Dodgeon from the Wellcome Trust, and also a member of the judging panel, said, “The finalists all promise to produce entertaining and compelling games, so choosing one winner will be a challenge. An important factor will be to see how the teams have integrated the science behind the theme, into the gameplay. Best of luck to all the teams in this crucial last stage of the competition!”

To follow the progress of MSUL 2013, visit http://www.facebook.com/MakeSomethingUnreal/. Video footage from the presentation day is available on the Unreal Engine channel on YouTube.

Over the past decade Epic’s Make Something Unreal game development competitions have awarded millions ofdollars’ worth of cash and prizes, enabled the release of numerous commercially successful computer and video games and jumpstarted many careers.

About Unreal Engine

Developed by Epic Games, the award-winning Unreal Engine is known for its cutting-edge graphics, best-of-breed toolset and scalability across major platforms. Operating on nine platforms, including PC, consoles and mobile devices, Unreal Engine 3 is designed to accelerate developers’ productivity for creating high-quality games, applications, training simulations, 3D visualizations, digital films and animated entertainment. Powering hundreds of games and integrated with two dozen leading middleware technologies, Unreal Engine 3 holds more than 20 technology awards, including seven Game Developer Front Line Awards and five Develop Industry Excellence Awards. The Unreal Engine also holds a seat in the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame. Epic recently revealed Unreal Engine 4, winner of multiple Best of E3 2012 awards, which offers unprecedented workflow improvements and graphical capabilities that provide unparalleled accessibility for developers building the next generation of games and applications. For additional information, please visit http://www.unrealengine.com.

About Epic Games

Established in 1991, Epic Games, Inc. develops cutting-edge games and cross-platform game engine technology. The company is responsible for the bestselling “Unreal” series of games, the blockbuster “Gears of War” franchise and the groundbreaking “Infinity Blade” line of mobile games. Epic’s award-winning Unreal Engine technology has won dozens of awards and is available for licensing. Epic is continually recruiting top talent for its studios located in North Carolina, Washington, Utah, Maryland, Poland, Korea and Japan. Additional information about Epic can be obtained at http://www.epicgames.com.

About Wellcome Trust

The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/

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