Unreal Engine 4: majority of in-development titles are new IP, says Epic boss

Unreal Engine 4 licensees are mostly working on brand new properties rather than sequels, Epic's Mike Gamble has said.

Speaking with Edge, the European territory manager said that there are lots of unannounced Unreal Engine 4 games in development, and of these, the ratio of sequels to new IP is "at least 50/50".

"If not 70/30 in favour of new stuff," he added.

Gamble said many of Epic's licensees are using sequels to help fund new properties.

"There’s a lot of buffering. A lot of studios are doing a franchise iteration and a new IP," he said.

As for when we might hear about some of these games, Gamble said the projects are clustered together, so that when the announces start happening we'll be "thoroughly sick" of hearing about Unreal Engine 4.

"It’ll happen this year, toward the Christmas period. Knowing the games that are in development, there are some crackers. The first quarter of 2015 is also where a lot of them seem to be aiming," he said.

"This year there seems to be a lot of cross-gen, but that’s publishers and developers being safe, isn’t it? It’s still a good revenue stream."

Thanks, CVG.