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Electronic Arts Goes Unreal

In an official press statement issued today, EA has announced that they have gained licensed rights to Epic's third Unreal Engine. As many know, Unreal Engine 3 is set to be one of the most widely used engines in the upcoming generation; more than a handful of publishers and developers, including Sony, have gained use of Epic's monstrously powerful and flexible game engine. With EA on the Unreal wagon, they've made it official that Medal of Honor: Airborne will begin its Unreal conversion immediately and that it will be delayed in 2007. Additionally, claims have surfaced EA will also incorporate the engine into their unannounced first person shooter called "Dead Space".

EA plans to only use Unreal Engine 3 for action titles…Which leads me to wonder what they're going to use Criterion for after they shelled out $50M for them a few years back in hopes of gaining full rights to Renderware? Criterion's offerings to the community of game developers is horribly pale for this upcoming generation, which makes EA's purchase of the developer not a very smart move — considering few, if any, wanted to license Renderware once it was in the hands of EA.

Gamers will get an incredible view of what the Unreal Engine is all about once Gears of War for the Xbox 360 debuts this November.

Related Game(s): Medal of Honor: Airborne