Gammill specifically cited Microsoft’s Forza Street, a mobile version of its Turn 10 Studios racing franchise, as an example of a game that relies on iOS support in the Unreal Engine. “So far as Epic is concerned, the Unreal Engine will be actually destroyed. As Gammill paints it, Apple terminating Epic’s account would force it to “choose between abandoning its customers and potential customers on the iOS and macOS platforms or choosing a different game engine when preparing to develop new games.” In any event, it is not as cost-effective as using a game engine that supports different platforms,” explained Kevin Gammill, Microsoft’s general manager for gaming developer experiences, in a declaration of support for Epic that Microsoft filed. “Developing a game using different game engines for different platforms may be prohibitively expensive and difficult. Microsoft raised a similar point in court, in a declaration submitted last week. This most likely would mean Unreal-based games would break eventually in future versions of iOS and macOS, and Epic would be unable to do anything about it.”
“The problem is more for developers going forward if Epic can’t use Apple’s tools, they can’t release bug fixes or new features. “If Epic lost access to Apple’s developer tools, that wouldn’t break any current apps using Unreal in the App Store (or on other platforms),” Riley Testut, a popular game emulation developer who now operates an alternative mobile app store called AltStore, tells The Verge. Because Apple controls the process by which developers create, test, and then submit iOS apps and any future updates for review, Unreal’s inability to support the iOS platform means Epic can’t incorporate new features of the operating system or implement updates and bug fixes that a game developer might need to keep the product running and functional. But the longer-term implications could be disastrous, especially for iOS game developers.
If Apple successfully fends off the injunction next month, the effect won’t be immediate, and games running on the Unreal Engine will keep working on iOS - at least until a major bug pops up.
That licensing has turned Epic’s Unreal Engine into a popular toolkit even for major, big-budget games, rivaled only by the more mobile-focused Unity.
Games that run on unreal engine 4 software#
Epic licensed the software to thousands of developers who don’t have the resources to build their own engine, in exchange for a five percent royalty on whatever’s created. Scores of big-budget game makers have also forgone custom, in-house engines for Epic’s, like Gearbox Software ( Borderlands 3), Riot Games ( Valorant), and Square Enix ( Final Fantasy VII Remake). The engine is also how Epic builds its own games, including Fortnite and past major hits like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. It’s currently used by dozens of game makers, Hollywood production and special effects studios, and other firms in the 3D rendering and computer graphics businesses. And as Epic and Apple settle in for years of legal warfare, those sorts of projects are likely to be disrupted too.ĭeveloped in 1998 alongside the first-person shooter Unreal, the Unreal Engine has become a cornerstone of Epic’s business and the gaming industry at large. The fate of the Unreal Engine is up in the airĪs Epic warned in a court motion last week, Apple’s moves against the Unreal Engine would threaten the software behind “hundreds of video games, the human brain, Baby Yoda, and space flight.” Projects like The Mandalorian may have no obvious connection to Epic Games and Fortnite, but they rely on the company and its tools to do their work.
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