In news that seemingly came out of nowhere, Epic Games announced today that they’ve acquired the majority stake in Poland-based developer People Can Fly. In addition, Epic revealed that PCF has been helping out with the PC port of Gears of War. Since Epic has their hands in PCF’s pockets, they’ll be announcing a new game during Games Convention this week.
Apparently the deal begun when PCF came to Epic to license their Unreal Engine 3 for an upcoming game. So instead of saying "sure!", Epic saw the opportunity to scoop up the developer. PCF is well-known for their 2004 FPS Painkiller, which eventually was ported to the Xbox, and also received an expansion pack called Battle out of Hell. A mod compilation retail package called Painkiller: Overdose will be releaed in October.
Michael Capps, President of Epic Games, said, "Working with this team of guys who love making over-the-top shooters was a blast, and we didn’t want it to end. And their work was outstanding. The multiplayer levels they created for Gears PC look as good or better than the original. How could we not jump at the opportunity to work together on a long-term basis?"
I’ll admit right now, I’ll gladly pay to see a Painkiller sequel running on the Unreal Engine 3. I do hope this doesn’t mean the end for PCF’s engine that was built for Painkiller, though. It looked great, ran great and certainly fit right in with the game’s running n’ gunning gameplay.
[Via FiringSquad]
