Creator / Epic Games

Epic Games is a game developer and publisher, best known for Unreal, Gears of War, Bulletstorm, and Fortnite, as well as its most widespread technology, the Unreal Engine.

They started in 1991 as Potomac Computer Systems, and their first game ever, ZZT, was developed using Turbo Pascal. The studio would later be recognized as Epic Megagames, and shortly before the launch of the first Unreal Tournament, the company would rename itself as simply Epic Games.

The company currently maintains two of it's own freely downloadable Game Engines; Unreal Engine 4 and 5, with UDK (Unreal Development Kit, or Unreal Engine 3 as it was commonly called) having deprecated support. Unreal Engine 4 was praised for its cross-platform capabilities, the gorgeous visuals it could render, as well as being very easy to work with with it's "blueprints" system, making game logic easier for developers to work with, rivalling that of Unity when it came to making development easier for developers of all stripes. It has subsequently been used as the basis for a lot of PC games ever since its release in 2014, with Unreal Tournament 4, the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, as well as the Destroy All Humans remake being some of the more prominent examples. It is also used in animation too; Zafari for example, uses the engine to create its show to great effect.

In late 2018, Epic announced that in addition to their existing repertoire of game development, publishing and technology, they would also be expanding into the realm of game distribution with the launch of the Epic Games Store, a Digital Distribution platform that competes with Valve's Steam service, EA's Origin, and CD Projekt's GOG DRM Free store.

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The pre-Unreal years:

• ZZT
  • Super ZZT
• Palace of Deceit: The Dragon's Plight
• Castle of the Winds
• Jazz Jackrabbit
  • Jazz Jackrabbit 2
  • Jazz Jackrabbit Advance
• Jill of the Jungle
  • Jill Goes Underground
  • Jill Saves The Prince
• Ken's Labyrinth
• Zone 66
• Jason Storm in Space Chase
• Xargon series
• Dare to Dream
• Traffic Department 2192
• Solar Winds
  • Solar Winds 2
• Heartlight
  • Heartlight Deluxe
• Silverball
  • Silverball Plus 2
• Highway Hunter
• The Adventures of Robbo
• Epic Pinball
  • Extreme Pinball
• Epic Connect
• Epic Checkers
• Epic Hoppers
• Fire Fight (co-developed with with Chaos Works)
• Age of Wonders
• Tyrian
• Electro Man
• One Must Fall
• Shadow
• Ancients 1 Deathwatch
  • Ancients 2: Approaching Evil

Unreal series:

• [1998] Unreal
  • [2000] Unreal: Return To Na Pali
• [1999] Unreal Tournament {co-developed with Digital Extremes}
• [2001] Unreal II: The Awakening {co-developed with Legend Entertainment}
• [2002] Unreal Championship
• [2002] Unreal Tournament 2003 {co-developed with Digital Extremes}
• [2004] Unreal Tournament 2004 {co-developed with Digital Extremes, Streamline Studios & Psyonix}
• [2005] Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict
• [2007] Unreal Tournament III
• [2014/5] Unreal Tournament 4

Unreal Engine games which Epic Shanghai (上海英佩) took part in but released by other publishers:

• [2010] Global Mission TPS - ZY Games
• [2011] Glourious Mission, aka Passion Leading Army - Giant Interactive
• [2011] Homefront - THQ
• [2012] Spec Ops: The Line - 2K Games

Gears of War series:

• [2006] Gears Of War
• [2008] Gears Of War II
• [2011] Gears Of War III
• [2013] Gears of War Judgment (developed by People Can Fly)

Other new millennium games:

• [2011] Shadow Complex (co-developed with ChAIR Entertainment)
• [2010] Infinity Blade (developed by ChAIR Entertainment)
• [2011] Bulletstorm (developed by People Can Fly)
• [2011] Duty Calls (as a playable teaser of the above, developed by People Can Fly)
• [2011] Infinity Blade II (developed by ChAIR Entertainment)
• [2014] Infinity Blade 3 (developed by ChAIR Entertainment)
• [2016] Paragon
• [2017] Fortnite
• [2017] Robo Recall

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Tropes related to this company:

• Approval of God:
  • They did this four times for the Unreal series. All the released patches here have Epic's actual blessing, giving them somewhat of semi-official release status^note For legal reasons, though, forget about seeing them on Steam or GOG.com:
    • The first instance was allowing the Unreal Tournament Preservation Group (UTPG) to release Epic-sanctioned patches, resulting in version 440-451b being released for the game.
    • The second instance took place in 2005, where OldUnreal's admin Smirftsch got Epic's permission to develop patches for Unreal, resulting in ver. 227a-j.
    • Overlapping with Official Fan-Submitted Content, the third instance took place in 2014, where the entire Unreal community got to participate in what would have been Unreal Tournament 4. Sadly, due to the unforeseen success of Fortnite requiring Epic's efforts to be focused on that game, few things came to pass.
    • The last instance took place in 2019, with the UTPG long gone, and was, once again, OldUnreal to the rescue: this time admin AnthraX managed to get Epic's blessing to release community patches for Unreal Tournament, resulting in ver. 469a-b.
  • Outside of the blessings, former lead designer Cliff Bleszinski loved the 3dsMax recreation of NyLeve's Falls.
• Author Appeal: They seem to be very big fans of The Fifth Element, a possible inspiration for the Gear armor, Gorgon Burst Pistol, and Peacemaker Carbine.
• Promoted Fanboy: So many, they have their own page.

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