OF COURSE the folks at Epic are working on the next iteration of the Unreal Engine. It’s only the lifeblood of their company. Epic’s Tim Sweeney tells IGN you shouldn’t expect the new engine soon, though.
I spend about 60 percent of my time every day doing research work that’s aimed at our next generation engine and the next generation of consoles. This is technology that won’t see the light of day until probably around 2014, but focusing on that horizon enables me to do some really cool things that just aren’t practical today, but soon will be. Some of our most productive work in the industry was on the first Unreal engine back in 1996, when I wrote a software vendor with a bunch of new features that hadn’t been seen before. I feel like that’s what I’m doing now on Unreal Engine 4 in exploring areas of the technology nobody else is really yet contemplating because they’re still a few years away from practicality. But I see a huge amount of potential there and so it’s very, very fun work.
So that means Epic is banking on the next generation starting up roundabouts 2014. Probably not a bad thought, although some people think it’s happening earlier. than that. I’m in no rush, though.
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