It's safe to say that over the past few years, Epic's Mark Rein has become one of the genuine prized interviews in the gaming industry to land.
Not just because he's the man who oversees games like Gears Of War 2 or Unreal Tournament 3 and not just because the Unreal Engine 3 powers more games than you realise (did you know it's used in TNA Impact?). The main reason is because he's honest and he has a lot to say.
When OXM grabbed him at Midway's Gamer Day, we were the penultimate interview of the night, always a nightmare slot as most interviewees have had enough of being asked the same question over and over again by that point. But Rein remained in good spirits and was happy to talk about whatever questions we threw his way - and here they are...
How will Unreal Tournament 3 fare alongside the 360's big hitters, Call Of Duty 4 and Halo 3?
Well, it's not one of those big story driven games like Call Of Duty 4 and Halo 3, so let's not get ridiculous expectations. But you know, the game's done well, we've already shipped 1.2 million units on the other two platforms and Xbox 360 is obviously the big daddy of console platforms right now, so let's keep our fingers crossed that Xbox 360 owners want to give it a shot.
One of the additions to the Xbox 360 version is five new maps and two new characters. Will they be coming to PlayStation3 as well?
For now, they're exclusive to Xbox 360. I don't know what will happen in the future.
How did the modding situation with Microsoft work out? Obviously, that was one of the biggest sticking points that caused the delay...
Yeah. Well, we're still working on it, so I'm cautiously optimistic right now based on some conversations I had with John Shafner last week. Regardless, we know some of these great mods are going to play a role on Xbox 360, even if we have to get some people and bring them over ourselves. We'll figure it out. I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't think we're going to have user exchanged mods in the shipping version of the game because that's coming pretty soon. Hopefully we'll have some solution down the road.
So you think Microsoft will make a compromise then?
I don't want to speak for them but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
We've seen a lot of games today that have used Unreal Engine 3...
Yup. Well, look at this one, TNA Impact. It looks fantastic. And you know what? It doesn't look anything like Gears Of War or Unreal Tournament 3, go figure. You can make games with our engine that look nothing like our games [laughs].
Have you played it yet?
I have not but I'm looking forward to it.
What about the other games here?
Wheelman and... This Is Vegas looks fantastic.
Have you played This Is Vegas?
Yeah, I played some of the gambling stuff, it's pretty cool. And then of course, it's not playable here but the next Mortal Kombat game is going to be great. We know Midway has other games in development too. I think Midway has done a really great job of embracing Unreal Engine technology and making it their own. We're really proud of the games they're making.
These games have been in development for quite a while because there's been an ambitious project to bring their tech, unrepenting system that's built on top of UE3 but I think ultimately, it's going to pay off handsomely for them. I think it's a great idea.
The new 50 Cent game uses Unreal Engine 3 as well.
That's right.