Epic Gets Majority Stake In People Can Fly

Representatives of Epic Games have announced that the company has acquired a majority interest in Poland-based studio People Can Fly, as the Painkiller developer continues its work on the PC version of Epic's massively popular Gears of War, with the two also collaborating on a new Epic IP. Epic says the relation began just last year when the Warsaw studio evaluated Unreal Engine 3, and, says Epic VP Mark Rein, the company was "totally blown away" by the early prototypes. "The quality of their work was extremely high, and knew we had to find a way to work more closely with them in the future,” said Rein, so the company hired People Can Fly to work on both Gears of War and the forthcoming project. That project, according to Epic, is currently being privately previewed to publishers this week at the Leipzig Games Convention, but is otherwise being kept under wraps. Said People Can Fly co-owner and creative director Adrian Chmielarz, “We are very excited to be working with Epic Games. To be able to work with the best technology company in the business and collaborate on making amazing fantastic games is an offer you just can’t refuse. Making games is hard work but it is also great fun. Working with Epic reduces the stress of being an independent developer and lets us focus even more on fun side of the business.”