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.
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 similar to the likes of Steam and GOG.com. The unique advantage of Epic's store is that they will take a mere 12% cut of revenue from game sales, as opposed to the industry standard of 30% for Digital Distribution services. Additionally, licensees of Epic's Unreal Engine 4 would not have to pay any additional royalties to Epic for sales on the store, making the store an even more attractive offer for such games.
In Early 2019, Epic drew ire from consumers for making a hard push to secure several third party games as exclusives for the Epic Store. The deal with Epic entailed that games had to be exclusive to Epic Games Store for a certain period before going to other digital storefronts. The controversy mostly stemmed from several of these games having already had pre-order sales on other PC stores like Steam, like Metro Exodus and Phoenix Point. Consumers were especially angry in the case of the latter game as it had been funded primarily by Kickstarter and had promised it's backers it would be available at launch on both Steam and GOG. The vitriol would only get worse as Epic continued to secure more and more games as Epic Store exclusives.
Epic drew more ire when the Epic Games Store was caught, without explicit prompt or permission, reading Steam data straight from a particular file on the user's computer rather than making specific requests through Steam's API, meaning it could take more data from Steam than is required for basic functions like syncing users' friends lists. After this, Epic promised to rectify the practice.
Early and unknown games:
- 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
- Kens 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 Plus 2
- The Adventures of Robbo
- Epic 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)
Recently published:
- [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
- [2016] Bullet Train (playable teaser that would eventually be developed into the above)
- [2019] Borderlands 3
Tropes related to this company:
- 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.
- Game Engine: The Unreal Engine series. Still quite popular to this day, currently at version 4.19 and counting.
- Obvious Beta:
- Their latest games would find their way as incomplete releases, with Epic themselves releasing A LOT of patches. As of now, the worst offender is Unreal Tournament III, which had many Game Breaking Bugs in the GUI before the Black Edition.
- Their Storefront was blatantly unfinished upon release, filled not only with bugs but is also full of security holes and lacking some of the even most basic of features such as a shopping cart.
- Promoted Fanboy:
- It became a constant since Unreal for Epic to pick up members of their community, so they can work with them. There are some examples in the Unreal page, most notably Make Something Unreal contest winners.
- The whole Unreal community got this for the 2014 reboot of ''Unreal Tournament'', as a result of Epic co-developing it with the community.
