SDCC 2011: Epic regrets abandoning Unreal

Epic Games president Mike Capps admitted Epic’s former flagship Unreal series has fallen on the wayside with the company’s backing of Gears of War for the past few years.

”It’s been a long time since we shipped an Unreal game, and it’s an awfully loved franchise that we hold pretty dear here,” admitted Capps, ”We haven’t been giving it the attention it deserves because we’ve been focusing on Gears of War and we’re still a relatively small company.

“At some point you wonder why we don’t rename the engine the Gears Engine or something.”

That’s not to say an Unreal III or Unreal Tournament 4 wouldn’t be counted out. Capps added, ”We’ve been sort of focused on making new properties, which you’ve seen with Shadow Complex, Bulletstorm and Infinity Blade, but sometimes I think just as a businessman that maybe we should be spending some more time with our existing franchises.”

The last game in the Unreal franchise was 2007’s Unreal Tournament 3.