Epic Game’s Mark Rein Interviewed

Computer and Videogames have managed to track down vice president of Epic Game’s Mark Rein for a hefty four page interview. They touch on everything from Gears of War, to Unreal Tournament 2007, the Xbox 360 launch, thoughts on PS3 and Revolution, the demise of the PC as a gaming platform and a tidbit on the progress of Unreal engine 4.0. Here are some of the highlights:

You mentioned those two key titles there (Unreal Tournament 2007 and Gears of war). How’s work going on them?

Mark Rein: Very well. Both games are a lot of fun. The beautiful thing with Unreal Tournament is the way we build it, it’s gameplay first; by bringing up levels in a very unfinished state we’re able to run around and navigate them and put in all the gameplay elements, then see how much fun they are before we go to the detailed step of decorating them and making everything beautiful.

And of course the other major title is Gears of War. How’s work progressing with that title? We’ve been keeping a real close eye on that one.

Mark Rein: Cliffy B and the whole team is doing very well. The game is looking spectacular of course as everyone expects, but more importantly, we’ve got some really great AI now. We’ve recently been doing some multiplayer play tests and that’s always fun, even if I’m getting my butt kicked as usual.

The next-gen’s arrived now with Xbox 360. What kind of impact do you think that’s made and how do you think Microsoft’s launch has gone?

Mark Rein: I think the quality of the launch titles was very good, probably the best I’ve seen of a launch console and I think the device is very good. As we’ve said in the past, the 360 turned out to be more powerful than our original estimates were, based on specifications and that’s always a positive thing.

There’s a ton of speculation swirling around Sony’s proposed PlayStation HUB service recently – do you think it needs to develop a Live-style service to really seize online this time around?

Mark Rein: I don’t think Sony necessarily has to replicate Xbox Live to be successful in online games. What they really need is some quite simple and rudimentary features to start with. They need server-browser capability. Unreal Tournament has had server-brower capabilities built in for years and years. If Sony never delivered any online components to us, we’d just use our own. It isn’t rocket science, we’re already doing it. What you do need is inter-game communication and that’s what’s great about Xbox, the ability to say “come join my game”. It needs a friends service, maybe some sort of scoreboard facilities – but that’s not essential, developers can create their own on the web.

Moving onto Nintendo and its plans for the Revolution – what do you make of its approach? Is it a system you’d look to develop for?

Mark Rein: We’re definitely interested in it and we’re looking forward to seeing the specifications and where it sits in terms of graphical capability. We’re interested in looking at it, we’ve spoken to Nintendo and expressed our interest.

We couldn’t let you go without mentioning Unreal Engine 4 – which was one of our biggest stories last year when we broke it at Leipzig. Anything more you can say at the moment?

Mark Rein: Not again! Oh my god what a mistake! It’s just a research project, you know it’s aimed at the next next generation, there’s still one guy still working on it. The answer is ‘yup Tim is still doing his research’, he’s still the only one on it. We don’t see that being staffed up for a couple more years, there’s nothing really there. It’s not Unreal Engine 4, yet, but one day it will be! We’re doing research that one day will be the cornerstone of Unreal Engine 4.

You can read the interview in its entirety by hitting the Read link.

Computer and Videogames have managed to track down vice president of Epic Game’s Mark Rein for a hefty four page interview. They touch on everything from Gears of War, to Unreal Tournament 2007, the Xbox 360 launch, thoughts on PS3 and Revolution, the demise of the PC as a gaming platform and a tidbit on the progress of Unreal engine 4.0. Here are some of the highlights:

You mentioned those two key titles there (Unreal Tournament 2007 and Gears of war). How’s work going on them?

Mark Rein: Very well. Both games are a lot of fun. The beautiful thing with Unreal Tournament is the way we build it, it’s gameplay first; by bringing up levels in a very unfinished state we’re able to run around and navigate them and put in all the gameplay elements, then see how much fun they are before we go to the detailed step of decorating them and making everything beautiful.

And of course the other major title is Gears of War. How’s work progressing with that title? We’ve been keeping a real close eye on that one.

Mark Rein: Cliffy B and the whole team is doing very well. The game is looking spectacular of course as everyone expects, but more importantly, we’ve got some really great AI now. We’ve recently been doing some multiplayer play tests and that’s always fun, even if I’m getting my butt kicked as usual.

The next-gen’s arrived now with Xbox 360. What kind of impact do you think that’s made and how do you think Microsoft’s launch has gone?

Mark Rein: I think the quality of the launch titles was very good, probably the best I’ve seen of a launch console and I think the device is very good. As we’ve said in the past, the 360 turned out to be more powerful than our original estimates were, based on specifications and that’s always a positive thing.

There’s a ton of speculation swirling around Sony’s proposed PlayStation HUB service recently – do you think it needs to develop a Live-style service to really seize online this time around?

Mark Rein: I don’t think Sony necessarily has to replicate Xbox Live to be successful in online games. What they really need is some quite simple and rudimentary features to start with. They need server-browser capability. Unreal Tournament has had server-brower capabilities built in for years and years. If Sony never delivered any online components to us, we’d just use our own. It isn’t rocket science, we’re already doing it. What you do need is inter-game communication and that’s what’s great about Xbox, the ability to say “come join my game”. It needs a friends service, maybe some sort of scoreboard facilities – but that’s not essential, developers can create their own on the web.

Moving onto Nintendo and its plans for the Revolution – what do you make of its approach? Is it a system you’d look to develop for?

Mark Rein: We’re definitely interested in it and we’re looking forward to seeing the specifications and where it sits in terms of graphical capability. We’re interested in looking at it, we’ve spoken to Nintendo and expressed our interest.

We couldn’t let you go without mentioning Unreal Engine 4 – which was one of our biggest stories last year when we broke it at Leipzig. Anything more you can say at the moment?

Mark Rein: Not again! Oh my god what a mistake! It’s just a research project, you know it’s aimed at the next next generation, there’s still one guy still working on it. The answer is ‘yup Tim is still doing his research’, he’s still the only one on it. We don’t see that being staffed up for a couple more years, there’s nothing really there. It’s not Unreal Engine 4, yet, but one day it will be! We’re doing research that one day will be the cornerstone of Unreal Engine 4.

You can read the interview in its entirety by hitting the Read link.