Epic show off Unreal Engine 3 on iPhone

Mike Bantick
Wednesday, 23 December 2009 03:08

Your IT - Entertainment

Gears of War 3 on the iPhone? Epic has been showing a tech demo (video in story) of the Unreal Engine 3 running on an iPod Touch.  UE3 is the engine behind a large number of AAA game titles running on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Over at Anandtech.com there is an explanation and display (also shown below) of a 3rd generation iPod Touch handling a level of Unreal Tournament powered by Unreal Engine 3 – the same engine behind games such as Gears of War 2, BioShock, Mass Effect and Mirror’s Edge.

Whilst there is not a great deal of action on screen, and the experimental controls - A virtual thumbstick on the left side of the screen to move, thumb tracking in the lower right corner to control the camera and a tap to shoot – will ultimately limit how much can actually happen, the framerate looks acceptable.

As stated in the article, this tech requires OpenGL ES2.0, meaning older iPod Touch models will not be capable of running the engine, and likewise, only the current iPhone 3GS can support any applications developed under this framework.

This looks like the beginning of a new mobile push by Epic.  Though no mention is made of licensing prices for an iPhone/iPod Touch development kit, with the Unreal Development Kit for Windows recently announced as free, there is a feeling Epic are turning their gaze towards the lucrative mobile market as a new income stream.

Reportedly  Mark Rein, Vice President at Epic Games gives a hint of this shift: “... CES we’ll see Unreal Engine 3 on another mobile platform entirely. More announcements will happen throughout 2010. This isn’t a platform specific thing; it’s about bringing Unreal Engine 3 to the entire portable market.”