GC 2007 - Epic Acquires People Can Fly, Readies New Game

A new game, born from Epic Games' collaboration with People Can Fly, is about to be revealed these days at the Leipzig GC. A collaboration that began last year and evolved so well, that Epic announced today they acquired a majority stake in the Polish studio, creator of the Painkiller franchise. The reaction shown by Adrian Chmielarz, creative director and co-owner of People Can Fly, was pretty much ecstatic:

"We are very excited to be working with Epic Games. To be able to work with the best technology company in the business and collaborate on making amazing fantastic games is an offer you just can't refuse. Making games is hard work but it is also great fun. Working with Epic reduces the stress of being an independent developer and lets us focus even more on fun side of the business."

It all began last year, when the Polish were evaluating the Unreal Engine 3 technology for a new multi-platform game project. The demos they put together within only a few weeks totally blew away the folks at Epic, so they decided to tighten their relationship with People Can Fly, hiring them to work on... ta-daaa... the PC version of Gears of War! (a version that was still a rumour back then)

We don't know precisely how deep they are involved in this porting, but from what Michael Capps (president of Epic Games) had to say, it seems that People Can Fly are working on new multiplayer maps for Gears of War on PC. And, as I was saying earlier, the two companies are collaborating on a completely new intellectual property, which will be previewed privately by Epic this week, at the Leipzig Games Convention.

Unreal Tournament + Gears of War + Painkiller? That's one hell of an explosive recipe!

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)