Epic, Chair Reveal Unreal-Powered iPhone Game Project Sword

Author: by Christian Nutt, Kris Graft

At a Wednesday Apple event attended by Gamasutra, Epic Games and subsidiary Chair Entertainment revealed Project Sword, an Unreal Engine 3-powered fantasy game that utilizes Apple's upcoming Game Center. The title is in full 3D and is Epic's first game for Apple portable devices. Project Sword sports touch-based swipe controls for combat for hack-and-slash RPG action. Epic president Mike Capps, who demoed the game in realtime on stage with Chair creative director Donald Mustard, said that the game will boast "intricate levels of detail you don't expect to see on a phone device." Epic began showing off UE3 running on iPhone last year with a modified version of Unreal Tournament running on the device. Epic VP Mark Rein said at the time the studio will eventually begin licensing out the iPhone version of the game engine, which provides the base for many of this generation's most popular console games. The game will also support Game Center, a unified social networking platform that will come with iOS 4.1, which arrives next week. Game Center adds social features to games such as matchmaking, leaderboards and achievements. Capps and Mustard said playing with a friend in Project Sword is easy via Game Center. iPad will get Game Center support with the launch of iOS 4.2. "Game Center is all about multiplayer games, and it allows you to challenge your friends," said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. "...And if you don't have any friends it will match you with people. And you can compare scores, and discover new games your friends are playing." Apart from Project Sword, Epic also revealed an app called Epic Citadel, a free Unreal Engine 3 tech demo for iOS devices that allows users to navigate through a "fictional castle realm" on their Apple mobile devices. Jobs, who revealed an updated iPod Touch set to launch next week, claimed the device "has become the most popular portable game player in the world. The iPod Touch outsells Nintendo and Sony portable game players combined." He continued, "It has over 50 percent market share for both the US and worldwide. It has by far become the most popular game player in the world. And over 1.5 billion games and entertainment downloads have been downloaded from iTunes just to the iPod Touch."