Gears of War 3

Gears of War 3
Developer(s)	Epic Games
Publisher(s)	Microsoft Studios
Producer(s)	Tanya Jessen Chris Mielke
Designer(s)	Cliff Bleszinski
Programmer(s)	Joe Graf
Artist(s)	Chris Perna Wyeth Johnson
Writer(s)	Karen Traviss Eric Nylund Aaron Linde
Composer(s)	Steve Jablonsky
Series	Gears of War
Engine	Unreal Engine 3
Platform(s)	Xbox 360
Release	September 20, 2011
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Gears of War 3 is a third-person shooter video game developed by Epic Games and published by Microsoft Studios for the Xbox 360. It is the third installment of the Gears of War series,^[1] and final game in the original trilogy. Originally due for release on April 8, 2011, the game was delayed and eventually released on September 20, 2011.^[2] The story was written by science fiction author Karen Traviss.^[3]

Like its predecessors, Gears of War 3 received widespread critical acclaim from critics. Critics praised its story, voice acting, visuals, and music, but criticized its lack of innovation. Gears of War 3 sold over 3 million copies and was the second best selling game in the U.S.

A sequel titled Gears of War 4, developed by The Coalition, was released in 2016.

Like its predecessors, Gears of War 3 is a third-person shooter that emphasizes the use of cover and squad tactics in order to survive combat situations. The player's character can carry four weapons: one pistol, one set of grenades, and two primary weapons. Firearms can be swapped with other weapons dropped by fallen foes or at stockpiles throughout the game, along with ammunition. When the player reloads a weapons ammunition, they have an opportunity for an "active reload", shown by a small cursor moving over a line with a marked section on the player's heads-up display (HUD). If the player hits a control button when the cursor is in the marked section, they will reload faster with the resulting reload being slightly more powerful than normal bullets, causing more damage to opponents as well as allowing for more "knockback" meaning that enemies running directly at you will be slowed on shot. If they press the button outside this section, this temporarily jams the weapon, leaving the player vulnerable and taking longer to reload. Alternatively, the player can opt to not try for the active reload, reloading the weapon at normal speed, but with no added damage.

When in combat, the player can take some damage from enemy fire, filling a blood-colored "crimson omen" on the HUD as a measure of the player's health, unlike the traditional health bar in other shooters. By staying out of the line of fire, this will dissipate over time, but by taking too much damage, the player will become downed or killed, and must be "revived" by an ally within a short "bleed-out" period, or else the player will die, unless playing the game on Insane difficulty in which case a player will die immediately after taking too much damage without the bleed-out. The player can also be killed during the bleed-out by the use of the game's signature execution moves by the enemy. Some types of damage, such as explosives or head shots, can kill the player immediately without the bleed-out period. Similarly, the player can also cause enemies to fall into bleed-out in the same manner. The player and their allies and enemies can use nearly any structure as cover, firing blind from behind it or leaning out to take aimed shots while usually exposing their head more. Players can quickly switch between nearby covering walls or jump over lower cover to rush forward. Within Gears of War 3, some cover can be destroyed after taking some amount of damage, which can be used to a tactical advantage to draw out enemies from cover.

New to Gears of War 3 is the ability to tag enemy opponents; computer-controlled allies will then concentrate fire on these marked enemies, while human allies will be alerted to their location on their HUD. Players can now also swap weapons and ammunition (and money during Horde Mode) with other allies in the course of battle.

The player maintains an experience level that persists across all game modes. The player earns experience through kills, performing special types of kills and executions, reviving and aiding teammates, and through general process of the campaign or competitive modes. Players can also gain experience points by winning medals and ribbons, which are awarded for defeating enemies with certain weapons or winning several matches. Earning levels unlocks the use of special characters and weapon skins within the game's multiplayer mode.

Gears of War 3 takes place two years after Jacinto, humanity's last stronghold, is destroyed in an effort to completely eradicate the Locust Horde. The Coalition of Ordered Governments (COG) remnants relocate to Vectes, a secluded island, in order to rebuild their civilization. The COG then disbands after Chairman Prescott mysteriously disappears and seemingly abandons his forces. A new foe, the Lambent, are threatening humanity's dwindling numbers. As the Lambent begin to invade Vectes, Marcus Fenix and his comrades retreat to the CNV Sovereign, a helicopter carrier, and take refuge at sea, whilst Hoffman leads other survivors back to the mainland to find haven at Anvil Gate. Delta Squad now consists of Marcus Fenix, Dominic 'Dom' Santiago, Anya Stroud, Damon Baird, Augustus 'Cole Train' Cole, Jace Stratton, Clayton Carmine and Samantha 'Sam' Byrne.

Gears of War 3 begins as Chairman Prescott unexpectedly arrives on the Sovereign. Prescott informs Marcus Fenix he needs to relay important information to the ship's senior officer, Captain Michaelson. The Lambent then launch a surprise attack on the ship, which leaves Michaelson dead and Prescott mortally wounded. Before dying, Prescott gives Marcus an encryption to the disc that Colonel Hoffman has and reveals that his father, Adam Fenix, is still alive but captive on Azura, a secret COG base. Marcus, Dom, Cole, and Baird fight their way to the Anvil Gate Fortress, where Hoffman possesses the necessary equipment to decrypt Prescott's disc.^[4] Upon arriving at Anvil Gate, Marcus and his comrades assist Hoffman's soldiers in repelling a combined Lambent and Locust assault.

Upon further analysis of the disc's content, Marcus learns that Azura is protected by man-made hurricane generators, making the island only accessible by submarine. Marcus and his comrades, joined by old friend Dizzy Wallin, successfully find a submarine but require Imulsion to fuel it. Dom suggests they first venture to an abandoned town called Mercy, where they discover that humans are becoming Lambent.^[5] During extraction, the Gears are nearly overrun by Locust and Lambent; Dom sacrifices himself to create an explosion that wipes out the hostile forces.^[6] Demoralized, they are forced to continue their search for fuel in the city of Char after their truck runs out of fuel.^[7] The ruined city is inhabited by several Stranded civilians who are led by Griffin (voiced by Ice-T). Despite his dislike for the COG and Gears, Griffin reluctantly tasks Marcus to recover a supply of Imulsion.^[8] After acquiring the fuel they are attacked by the Locust Horde, led by Queen Myrrah. Griffin's forces sustain heavy casualties in the ensuing battle, but the Gears are ultimately able to escape and reach the shipyards where they have to fight the Locust as they repair and fuel their submarine.^[9]

Marcus' group finally arrives at Azura, discovering that it is a sanctuary and resort for Sera's most elite and powerful individuals.^[10] Adam contacts the Gears and reveals he is being held captive atop Azura's main hotel tower.^[11] Marcus's group battles through waves of hostiles before finding his father. Adam quickly explains that he has created a device capable of eradicating all Lambent and Locust life forms on Sera. Adam had worked with Myrrah before to try to tune the wave so that only Lambent would be affected, but with the Imulsion, revealed to be a parasitic lifeform, now infecting humans, Adam ran out of time, infuriating Myrrah.^[11][12] Marcus and his comrades defend Adam from the Locust and Lambent, and from an attack by Myrrah. Adam reveals that he had to infect himself with Lambent cells in order to test his machine. As the machine begins to pulsate with energy, Adam bids his son farewell before the device kills him. Myrrah rises from the rubble and begins insulting Adam. Marcus fatally stabs Myrrah with Dom's commando knife he got back in Mercy.^[13] Shortly afterwards, the machine emits a blue wave of energy that sweeps across Sera, destroying the Locust, Lambent, and the Imulsion. The scene transitions back to Marcus, who is mournfully wondering what humanity has left. He is comforted by Anya, who assures Marcus that the sacrifices of Adam, Dom, and their comrades have guaranteed humanity a future.^[9]

A DLC acting as a secondary single player campaign to Gears of War 3, the player takes control of both General RAAM, the Locust's main General, and Michael Barrick of Zeta-Six from the Gears of War comic series set during the Evacuation of Ilima several years before the first Gears of War game. Other major characters include Lieutenant Minh Young Kim from Gears of War, Tai Kailso from Gears of War 2, new character Alicia Valera and Jace Stratton from the comics and Gears of War 3. The main setting, the COG city of Ilima, previously briefly appeared in Gears of War 2 as ruins.

The surviving COG city of Ilima is besieged by a coming Kryllstorm, a mass of millions of Kryll that will devour everything in their path once the city is dark enough. To speed up the Kryllstorm, Locust General RAAM leads an elite unit throughout Ilima, decimating COG resistance and summoning Seeders to black out the sky faster. Throughout the battle, RAAM is instructed by Queen Myrrah who sees taking Ilima as a stepping stone towards reaching the COG capital city of Ephyra.

At the same time, Zeta-Six is assigned to help evacuate Ilima via convoys of APCs, only to have their checkpoint attacked by massive Locust forces. Repelling multiple waves, Zeta ultimately uses the Hammer of Dawn to finish off the attacking Locust and is reassigned to help another squad defending a bank with civilian survivors inside. Zeta fails to save the other Gears and most of the civilians, but discovers a young Jace Stratton holed up inside of the bank's vault. The squad rescues Jace and escorts him to a convoy for evacuation, killing several Seeders and a Brumak to protect the convoy. At Jace's request, Zeta agrees to check out the local high school where Jace believes that there might be more survivors, including his adoptive father Dr. Wisen.

Reaching the high school, Zeta finds it to be a COG evacuation center which has been overrun by the Locust, including a Berserker, packs of Wretches and several giant Serapedes. However, they overhear a message from Dr. Wisen directing the survivors of the attack on the school to retreat to his nearby orphanage. Zeta fights their way back outside, managing to kill the Berserker by using several exploding cars in the parking lot. Finding their comms blocked by the Seeders and with time running out, Zeta fights their way to city hall where Barrick uses the mobile command center located there to take control of the Hammer of Dawn and kill the Seeders. With communications restored and less than half an hour left until the city is consumed, Zeta contacts Command who reveals that they are the only COG forces left in the city. As Kim refuses to abandon the survivors at the orphanage, Command agrees to redirect the last APC to meet them there for evacuation.

At the orphanage, Zeta discovers several survivors, including Dr. Wisen. As the APC arrives, carrying Jace, General RAAM leads a personal attack on the survivors, killing Alicia Valera and destroying the APC. Jace joins the remaining Gears in fighting off the Locust, though they are quickly cut off from the others. Zeta and Jace fight their way back through the nearby streets and sewers, encountering and killing most of RAAM's elite unit, particularly the elite Theron Guard that had been acting as RAAM's second in command during the battle. Upon their return to the orphanage, the Gears and Jace face off against multiple waves of Locust led by RAAM himself from atop a Reaver and weaponizing the Kryll against them. The group manages to shoot down the Locust General's Reaver, but Barrick is forced to stop the vengeful Kim from making a suicidal attack on the trapped and injured RAAM. Retreating to the roof, the survivors are evacuated by a King Raven helicopter just before the Kryllstorm completely engulfs Ilima. Impressed with Jace, Barrick commends the young man's courage and states that he will make a great Gear in the future.

Gears of War 3 includes a stereoscopic mode for 3DTV sets. It uses TriOviz for Games Technology, which is integrated with Unreal Engine 3, for stereoscopic 3D support. All Gears of War 3 gameplay and cinematics have S3D support, and this extends to split-screen play as well.^[14]

On December 17, 2010, Epic Games confirmed that the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm for the Xbox 360 included early access to the multiplayer beta of Gears of War 3 and access to exclusive content. It was later announced that pre-ordering Gears of War 3 in any edition at GameStop in the United States or GAME in the United Kingdom would grant access to the public beta. The Gears of War 3 exclusive beta began on April 18, 2011, a week before the GameStop pre-order beta which began on April 25, 2011.^[15] There was in-game content unlockable exclusively for beta testers that included characters and weapon skins. All players that participated in the beta received a medal to identify themselves as beta testers upon the release of the final game. The beta concluded on May 15, 2011.^[16][17]

In 2017 and later in 2020, footage of Gears of War 3 running on a PlayStation 3 surfaced. The footage was confirmed to be legitimate and appeared to be from a data breach Epic had suffered in 2011, but Kotaku confirmed with Epic Games that the source of the footage was not from an unannounced port of the game to the PlayStation 3, but was from a test of the Unreal Engine. Epic called the software "a byproduct of Epic’s internal Unreal Engine 3 testing process, which utilized both Gears and Unreal Tournament, and was never part of any actual product work for PlayStation 3."^[18]

According to Tim Sweeney, Gears of War 3 cost between $48,000,000 and $60,000,000 to develop.^[19] The game was officially unveiled on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon by Cliff Bleszinski, with a teaser trailer featuring the song "Heron Blue" by Sun Kil Moon.^[20][21][22] Prior to the official reveal, an advert for the game was accidentally displayed on the Xbox 360 Dashboard.^[21]

The game was available for pre-order in three retail versions: Standard, Limited, and Epic. The game also has special character variants based on where the game was pre-ordered. Confirmed variants include Mechanic Baird, Commando Dom, Savage Grenadier Elite, and Savage Kantus. On May 23, 2011, Epic Games confirmed that an exclusive replica Retro Lancer designed by NECA will be available exclusively at GameStop, while a gold version of the replica Retro Lancer is also available exclusively at Play.com.^[23]

• The Standard Edition contains the game, a cut-down manual, and a sheet of Gears of War 3 themed decals.
• The Limited Edition contains an Octus Award Box with the Octus Service Medal awarded to Dr. Adam Fenix, exclusive Adam Fenix playable character for multiplayer, fabric COG flag, and the personal effects of Dr. Adam Fenix such as his Last Will and Testament, Hammer of Dawn schematics and Fenix family mementos.
• The Epic Edition includes everything from the Limited Edition as well as a Marcus Fenix statue, a 96-page book about the game's art and design, and the Infected Omen Weapon Pack that includes skins for the Lancer, Hammerburst, Retro Lancer, Sawed Off Shotgun and Gnasher Shotgun.
• The Gears of War 3 Limited Edition Xbox 360 console included a customized red console with the 'Infected Omen' design, two Special Edition Gears of War 3 wireless controllers, a 320GB hard drive, and two tokens to unlock Adam Fenix and the Infected Omen Weapon Pack.

Clayton Carmine, brother of Anthony and Benjamin, of the previous two games, appears in Gears of War 3. Carmine is more competent, witty, and muscular in the third game, with tattoos of his brothers and the reasons they died on his arms (Keep your head down! and Practice reloading!). He was shown wielding a Mulcher machine gun in several released pictures from the game. A vote was held between July 29, 2010, and September 6, 2010, to determine whether Carmine would live or die based on sales of Xbox avatar T-shirts available for purchase on Xbox Live; Epic had developed endings reflecting either choice prior to the conclusion of the vote.^[24] Additionally, actual T-shirts were available from San Diego Comic-Con with all purchases.^[25] The voting campaign raised over $150,000, which was all donated to Child's Play.^[26]

Ice-T voices the character of Griffin.^[27] It was announced during E3 2011 that Ice-T's band, Body Count, would be reuniting to make a song titled "The Gears of War", which was featured in the Horde 2.0 trailer.^[28]

Announced via Twitter from Cliff Bleszinski, Gears of War 3 will have unlockables just like Gears of War 2.

• On April 1, 2011, Bleszinski announced as an April Fools' joke via Twitter that Gears of War 3 will have a new unlockable weapon in the form of a 6 barrelled shotgun that has a special ability to shoot nukes. The beta had exclusive unlockables, such as a Golden Retro Lancer by completing 90 matches in any game type, and earning 100 kills with it will unlock it for use in the full game. Players who purchased the Bulletstorm Epic Edition unlocked an exclusive Flaming Hammerburst for use in the beta and the full game.
• Epic announced that players must hold on to their beta saved file for their unlockables to appear in the full game. It was also confirmed on June 24, 2011, that completing required achievements from Gears of War and Gears of War 2 will earn the player new weapon skins and medals in Gears of War 3.
• The Gold Lancer and Hammerburst have been confirmed as returning from Gears of War 2 to Gears of War 3. Rod Fergusson announced that players with the Veteran Gear achievement from Gears of War 2 will earn an in-game Old Guard medal and callsign as well as gold variants of all five starting weapons. There was a method to obtain all five gold weapons without the achievement, but after listening to negative fan feed back, they have since made the golden Gnasher shotgun exclusive to Veteran Gear players.^{[citation needed]}
• Chrome weapon skins for the five starting weapons have also been confirmed to be unlockable by playing the Xbox 360 or PC version of Gears of War and Gears of War 2.
• It was confirmed by Rod Fergusson that the player will earn the green liquid metal skin in a special marketing promotion for Jack in the Box.
• People who watch the Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol trailer on Xbox Live and then complete Gears of War 3 on Insane Difficulty by December 25, 2011, either in single or multiplayer mode will unlock an exclusive Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol Weapon Skin Pack. This pack comes with weapon skins for the Lancer, Retro Lancer, Hammerburst, Gnasher and Sawed-off Shotgun. Those that have already completed the game on Insane will automatically receive the pack on December 31.

At the San Diego Comic-Con International Convention, Paul Jr. Designs aka "PJD", the company of Paul Teutul Jr. from the Discovery series American Chopper, revealed their commissioned Gears of War trike. Discovery episodes chronicled their efforts to build the trike, visits to Epic and them interpreting various merchandising and promotional material into the bike. The team from Epic was impressed and even mentioned the possibility of adding the trike to a future game in the series.^[29]

On 29 August 2011, Microsoft and Epic Games announced a Gears of War 3 Season Pass that entitles gamers to the first four installments of downloadable content (at a discount) that will roll out over the course of the next year, with the first releasing in November 2011.^[30] Previous characters in the series, including Tai and RAAM, will be future downloadable content characters.^[31] It has also been confirmed that Story DLC will be available after launch, and that the regular cast of Gears of War will not be in future DLC.^[32]

The first downloadable content is the "Horde Command Pack", which was released on November 1, 2011. In addition to new character and weapon skins, it provides three new maps for use in Versus and Horde mode and three new fortifications that the players can build.^[33]

The second downloadable content is called "Versus Booster Map Pack". It was released on November 24, 2011, and is available for free. The pack contains five multiplayer maps which includes Blood Drive, Azura, and Rustlung, which were originally made available through the Horde Command Pack; and Bullet Marsh and Clocktower, which will be new to Gears of War 3.

The third downloadable content is "RAAM's Shadow". The expansion was released on December 13, 2011.^[34] It includes four new multiplayer characters, a new weapon set named "Chocolate", new achievements, and over 3 hours of singleplayer gameplay. The story takes place before the first Gears of War, set in Sera post-emergence day. Zeta Squad is enlisted to evacuate Ilima City and protect the citizens against a Locust Kryll storm. The player will be in the role of General RAAM, the main antagonist from the first Gears of War. Zeta is led by Michael Barrick (from "Gears of War" comics fame) and composed of returning characters such as Lt. Minh Young Kim, from the first Gears of War and Tai Kaliso from Gears of War 2, Jace Stratton from Gears of War 3 and also includes a new female character, Alicia Valera.^[35] The primary setting is the city of Illima from Gears of War 2.

The fourth downloadable content is entitled: "Fenix Rising", and it was released on January 17, 2012. The DLC includes five new multiplayer maps and also introduced four new character skins and a new system that allows players to rank up through level 100 multiple times.^[36]

The fifth and final^[37] downloadable content, entitled "Forces of Nature" was released on March 27, 2012. The map pack is based around weather and natural disasters and consists of three new multiplayer maps (Aftermath, Artillery, and Cove), as well as remade versions of Jacinto and Raven Down. On top of the new maps, the DLC also includes four new character models, five weapon skins ready to use immediately, and two unlockable weapon skins.^[38] New Easter-egg type weapons, Elemental Cleavers, are introduced.

Reception
Aggregate scores Aggregator Score GameRankings 91.49%[39] Metacritic 91/100[40] Review scores Publication Score CVG 9/10[41] Destructoid 8/10[42] Eurogamer 8/10[43] Famitsu 39/40[44] Game Informer 9.5/10[45] GameRevolution [46] GameSpot 9.5/10[47] GameZone 9/10[48] Giant Bomb [49] IGN 9/10[50] Joystiq [51] OXM (US) 10/10[52] The Guardian [53] The Daily Telegraph [54] PC Advisor [55]

Upon release, Gears of War 3 received critical acclaim, garnering an aggregate score of 91.49% on GameRankings^[39] and 91/100 on Metacritic.^[40] Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb gave Gears of War 3 a review of 5 out of 5 stars;^[49] stating "Gears of War 3 is a fantastic follow-up that answers important questions about the nature of the Gears universe while backing it all up with an even bigger, better multiplayer suite." IGN called it "the spectacular conclusion to one of the most memorable and celebrated sagas in video games."^[50] Game Informer gave it a 9.5/10, saying that "Gears 3 is a fantastic idea polished to near perfection by an enormous crew of talented developers and a bottomless budget," with "a constantly shuffling deck of threats that encourage players to experiment with new weapons and tactics," "hilariously over-the-top set piece moments," and a "smart approach to network play."^[45]

After Eurogamer published an 8/10^[43] review for the game, Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski reported, saying "When people rated [Gears of War 2] higher than [Gears of War 3], it kind of upset me because I know [Gears of 3] is a better game on every level." His comments were criticized by Destructoid and GamePro. In GamePro, McKinley Noble argued that "slamming a 'bad' review that's actually pretty favorable does come off as selfish".^[56]

Gears of War 3 received more than one million pre-orders.^[57] The game sold more than 3 million copies during its first week—higher than the previous two Gears of War entries.^[58] It was the second-best selling game only behind Madden NFL 12.^[59]

• IGN: Best Action and Shooter Game (2011)^[60]
• G4: Best Xbox 360 Game and Shooter (2011)^[61]
• Game Informer: Best Cooperative Mode (2011)^[62]
• GameSpot: Best Shooter (2011)^[63]

During the 15th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Gears of War 3 for "Action Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Online Gameplay".^[64]

• Gears of War 3 on IMDb

Epic Games, Inc.

Headquarters in Cary, North Carolina, 2016
Formerly	Potomac Computer Systems (1991–1992) Epic MegaGames, Inc. (1992–1999)
Type	Private
Industry	Video games
Founded	1991; 35 years ago (1991) in Potomac, Maryland, US
Founder	Tim Sweeney
Headquarters	Cary, North Carolina , US
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Tim Sweeney (CEO) Kim Libreri (CTO) Mark Rein (VP) Adam Sussman (president) Charlie Wen (CCO)
Products	Unreal Engine Bink Video Epic Games Store Unreal series Gears of War series Fortnite
Owners	Tim Sweeney (51.4%) Tencent (40%) Sony (5.4%) Kirkbi A/S (3.2%)
Number of employees	4,000+ (2023[1])
Subsidiaries	See § Subsidiaries and divisions
Website	epicgames.com
Footnotes / references [2][3][4]

Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.

Epic Games developed Unreal Engine, a commercially available game engine which also powers its internally developed video games like Fortnite and the Unreal, Gears of War, and Infinity Blade series. In 2014, Unreal Engine was named the "most successful videogame engine" by Guinness World Records.^[5]

Epic Games owns the game developers Psyonix, Mediatonic, and Harmonix, and operates studios in multiple locations around the world. While Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder, Tencent acquired a 48.4% outstanding stake, equating to 40% of total Epic, in the company in 2012, as part of an agreement aimed at moving Epic towards a games as a service model. Following the release of the popular Fortnite Battle Royale in 2017, the company gained additional investments that enabled it to expand its Unreal Engine offerings, establish esports events around Fortnite, and launch the Epic Games Store. As of April 2022, the company has a US$32 billion equity valuation.

On August 13, 2020, Epic released a version of Fortnite that included a permanent discount on V-bucks across all platforms (except iOS and Android devices) if they purchased directly through Epic, bypassing Apple and Google's storefronts. Both Apple and Google immediately delisted the game for violating the storefronts' terms of service by including their own storefront, which led Epic to file lawsuits against both companies the same day, accusing them of antitrust behavior in how they operate their app stores. While Apple was ultimately victorious in a bench trial in September 2021 and upheld through appeals, Google's actions were found to be monopolistic by a jury trial in December 2023.

Potomac Computer Systems was founded by Tim Sweeney in 1991.^[6] At the time, Sweeney was studying mechanical engineering and living in a dorm at the University of Maryland. He frequently visited his parents, who lived in nearby Potomac, Maryland, where his personal computer, used for both work and leisure, was situated.^[6] Out of this location, Sweeney started Potomac Computer Systems as a computer consulting business but later figured that it would be too much work he would have to put into keeping the business stable, and scrapped the idea.^[6]

After finishing his game ZZT, Sweeney opted to re-use the Potomac Computer Systems name to release the game to the public in January 1991.^[6][7] It was only with the unexpected success of ZZT, caused in most part by the easy modifiability of the game using Sweeney's custom ZZT-oop programming language,^[8] that made Sweeney consider turning Potomac Computer Systems into a video game company.^[6] ZZT was sold through bulletin board systems, while all orders were fulfilled by Sweeney's father, Paul Sweeney.^[9] The game sold several thousand copies as of May 2009, and Paul Sweeney still lived at the former Potomac Computer Systems address at the time, fulfilling all orders that eventually came by mail.^[6][9] The final copy of ZZT was shipped by Paul Sweeney in November 2013.^[9]

In early 1992, Sweeney found himself and his new-found video game company in a business where larger studios, such as Apogee Software and id Software, were dominant, and he had to find a more serious name for his.^[6] As such, Sweeney came up with "Epic MegaGames", a name which incorporated "Epic" and "Mega" to make it sound like it represented a fairly large company (such as Apogee Software), although he was its only employee.^[6] Sweeney soon underwent searching for a business partner, and eventually caught up with Mark Rein, who previously quit his job at id Software and moved to Toronto, Ontario.^[8][6] Rein worked remotely from Toronto, and primarily handled sales, marketing and publishing deals; business development that Sweeney found to have significantly contributed to the company's growth.^[6] Some time this season, the company soon had 20 employees consisting of programmers, artists, designers and composers.^[10] Among them was the 17-year old Cliff Bleszinski, who joined the company after submitting his game Dare to Dream to Sweeney.^[11] The following year, they had over 30 employees.^[12]

In 1996, Epic MegaGames produced a shareware isometric shooter called Fire Fight, developed by Polish studio Chaos Works. It was published by Electronic Arts.^[13] By 1997, Epic MegaGames had 50 people working for them worldwide.^[14] In 1998, Epic MegaGames released Unreal, a 3D first-person shooter co-developed with Digital Extremes, which expanded into a series of Unreal games. The company also began to license the core technology, the Unreal Engine, to other game developers.^[15]

In February 1999, Epic MegaGames announced that they had moved their headquarters to a new location in Cary, North Carolina, and would henceforth be known as simply Epic Games.^[16] Rein explained that "Unreal was first created by developers who were scattered across the world, eventually, the team came together to finish the game and that's when the real magic started. The move to North Carolina centralizes Epic, bringing all of the company's talented developers under one roof."^[16] Furthermore, Sweeney stated that the "Mega" part of the name was dropped because they no longer wanted to pretend to be a big company, as was the original intention of the name when it was a one-man team.^[6] The follow-up game, Unreal Tournament, shipped to critical acclaim the same year,^[17] at which point the studio had 13 employees.^[18]

The company launched the Make Something Unreal competition in 2004, aiming to reward video game developers who create mods using the Unreal game engine. Tripwire Interactive won US$80,000 in cash and computer hardware prizes over the course of the contest in the first contest in 2004.^[19][20]

Around 2006, the personal computer video game market was struggling with copyright infringement in the form of software piracy, and it became difficult to make single-player games, elements that had been part of Epic's business model to that point. The company decided to shift focus into developing console systems, a move which Sweeney called the start of the third major iteration of the company, "Epic 3.0".^[21] In 2006, Epic released the Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War, which became a commercial success for the company, grossing about $100 million off a $12 million budget.^[22][21] A year later, the company released Unreal Tournament 3 for PC and acquired a majority share in People Can Fly.^[23][24]

In 2008, Epic Games released Gears of War 2,^[25] selling over three million copies within the first month of its release.^[26]

Epic Games released on September 1, 2010 Epic Citadel as a tech demo to demonstrate the Unreal Engine 3 running on Apple iOS, within Adobe Flash Player Stage3D and using HTML5 WebGL technologies. It was also released for Android on January 29, 2013. Epic Games worked on an iOS game, Infinity Blade,^[27] which was released on December 9, 2010.^[28] The third game in the series, Gears of War 3, came out in 2011.^[29]

In 2011, Epic's subsidiary Titan Studios was dissolved.^[30] At the 2011 Spike Video Game Awards, Epic Games announced their new game Fortnite.^[31]

In June 2012, Epic announced that it was opening up a new studio, Epic Baltimore, made up of members of 38 Studios' Big Huge Games.^[32] Epic Baltimore was renamed to Impossible Studios in August 2012.^[33] However, the studio ended up closing its doors in February 2013.^[34][35]

Epic fully acquired People Can Fly in August 2012, rebranding them as Epic Games Poland in November 2013 as they began work on Fortnite alongside Epic.^[36] Epic alongside People Can Fly made one last game in the Gears of War series that served as a prequel to the other games, Gears of War: Judgement, which was released in 2013. At this point, Epic had considered developing a fourth main title for Gears of War, but estimated that its budget would be at least $100 million.^[22] Additionally, they had suggested the idea of a multiplayer-only version of Gears of War that featured improved versions of maps based on user feedback, similar to the concept behind Unreal Tournament, but Microsoft rejected this idea. Epic recognized the troubles of being held to the business objectives of a publisher and began to shift the company again.^[21]

File:GitHub OctoTales - Epic Games.webm Coupled with their desire to move away from being beholden to a publisher, Epic Games observed that the video game industry was shifting to a games-as-a-service model (GaaS). Sweeney stated, "There was an increasing realization that the old model wasn't working anymore and that the new model was looking increasingly like the way to go."^[21] In an attempt to gain more GaaS experience, they made an agreement with Chinese Tencent, who had several games under their banner (including Riot Games' League of Legends) operating successfully as games as a service.^[37] In exchange for Tencent's help, Tencent acquired approximately 48.4% of Epic then issued share capital, equating to 40% of total Epic – inclusive of both stock and employee stock options, for $330 million in June 2012. Tencent Holdings has the right to nominate directors to the board of Epic Games and thus counts as an associate of the Group.^[3] However, Sweeney stated that Tencent otherwise has very little control on the creative output of Epic Games.^[21] Sweeney considered the partial acquisition by Tencent as the start of "Epic 4.0", the fourth major iteration of the company, allowing the company to be more agile in the video game marketplace.^[21][38]

Around this point, Epic had about 200 employees.^[21] A number of high-profile staff left the company months after the Tencent deal was announced for various reasons. Some notable departures included:^[39]

• Cliff Bleszinski, then the design director, announced he was leaving Epic Games in October 2012 after 20 years with the company. His official reason was "It's time for a much-needed break".^[40] Bleszinski later stated that he had become "jaded" about the gaming industry in the lead-up to Tencent's involvement. After Tencent's investment, Bleszinski attempted to renegotiate his contract but failed to come to terms, making him think about retirement instead. He opted to stop coming to work, spending his time at his beach house, eventually leading Sweeney to come down and have a heart-to-heart discussion with Bleszinski on the new direction Epic was going, and asking him to make a firm decision regarding his commitment to Epic. Bleszinski opted to write his resignation letter the next day.^[41] After about two years, Bleszinski started Boss Key Productions in 2014.^{[citation needed]}
• President Mike Capps announced his retirement in December 2012, and cited as reasons the birth of a baby boy he was having with his wife and his plans to be a stay-at-home dad.^[42] He subsequently announced quitting his advisory role as well as his affiliation with the company in March 2013.^[43]
• Rod Fergusson, who had been a lead developer for the Gears of War series, left Epic in August 2012. Fergusson stated that he had seen the direction that the Tencent acquisition would have taken the company, and was not interested in the free-to-play style of games but instead wanted to continue developing a "AAA, big-narrative, big-story, big-impact game".^[44] Fergusson briefly joined Irrational Games, owned by 2K Games, to help complete BioShock Infinite. While there, Fergusson talked with 2K about potentially continuing the Gears of War series, leading to talks between 2K Games, Epic, and Microsoft.^[21] As a result, Microsoft acquired the rights to Gears of War on January 27, 2014, eventually assigned those to Microsoft Game Studios; Fergusson moved to Black Tusk Studios, owned by Microsoft Game Studios, to take on lead development for a new Gears title, with the studio being rebranded as The Coalition. The first game since the acquisition, Gears of War 4, was released in October 2016.^[45][46]
• Adrian Chmielarz, the founder of People Can Fly, who joined Epic when his studio was acquired earlier in 2012, decided to leave after Tencent's acquisition, stating that he and other former People Can Fly members did not believe the free-to-play games as a service direction fit their own personal vision or direction they wanted to go. Chmielarz and these others left Epic in late 2012 to form The Astronauts.^[41]
• Lee Perry, a lead designer on both Unreal and Gears of War series, felt that Epic has started to grow too large to maintain a role as an eccentric game developer. Coupled with the studio's need for more management to support the games as a service model, Perry felt that their creative freedom would become limited. He and five other senior people left Epic to form a new studio, Bitmonster.^[41]

Epic continued its goal to deliver games as a service following these departures. Fortnite was to serve as their testbed for living games, but with the shifts in staff, and its engine from Unreal Engine 3 to 4, its release suffered some setbacks. Epic started additional projects; the free-to-play and community-developed Unreal Tournament, first announced in 2014,^[47][48] and the free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena game Paragon, launched in 2016 for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4.^[49] Epic also released a remastered version of Shadow Complex for newer consoles and computers in 2015,^[50][51] and their first foray into virtual reality with the release of Robo Recall for the Oculus Rift.^[52][53]

The investment infusion from Tencent allowed Epic Games to relicense the Unreal Engine 4 engine in March 2015 to be free for all users to develop with, with Epic taking 5% royalties on games developed with the engine.^[54]

In June 2015, Epic agreed to allow Epic Games Poland's departure from the company and sold its shares in the studio; the studio reverted to their former name, People Can Fly. The Bulletstorm IP was retained by People Can Fly who has since launched a remastered version called Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition on April 7, 2017, published by Gearbox Software.^[55][56]

By July 2017, Fortnite was finally in a state for public play.^[57] Epic launched the title through a paid early access then, with a full free-to-play release expected in 2018.^[58] Following on the popularity of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, a battle royale game released earlier in 2017, Epic developed a variant of Fortnite called Fortnite Battle Royale, which was released in September 2017^[59] as a free-to-play title across computer, console, and mobile platforms. Fortnite Battle Royale quickly gained an audience, amassing over 125 million players by May 2018 with estimates of having earned over $1 billion by July 2018 through microtransactions, including its battle pass system. Epic Games, which had been valued at around $825 million at the time of Tencent's acquisition, was estimated to be worth $4.5 billion in July 2018 due to Fortnite Battle Royale, and expected to surpass $8.5 billion by the end of 2018 with projected growth of the game.^[60] Player count continued to expand when Epic broke new ground by convincing Sony to change its stance on cross-platform play allowing players on any device to compete with each other in Fortnite Battle Royale.^[61] Fortnite has drawn nearly 250 million players as of March 2019.^[62]

Fortnite's commercial success enabled Epic to make several changes to its other product offerings. In July 2018, it reduced the revenue cut that it took for assets sold on the Unreal Engine Marketplace from 30% to 12%.^[63] Epic launched the Epic Games Store digital storefront to compete with services like Steam and GOG.com, not only taking a 12% cut of revenue compared to the industry standard of 30%, but also eliminated the 5% cut for games using the Unreal engine sold via the storefront.^[64] However the company also refocused its development efforts to provide more support for Unreal and Fortnite by ending support for Paragon^[65] and Unreal Tournament.^[66]

The financial success of Fortnite brought additional investment into Epic Games. Epic Games was one of eleven companies selected to be part of the Disney Accelerator program in 2017, providing Epic equity investment and access to some of Disney's executives, and potential opportunity to work with Disney in the future. Disney had selected both Epic and aXiomatic as potential leads in the growing esports arena.^[67]

Epic's has used its windfall to support its products. In January 2019, following a dispute between Improbable and Unity Technologies over changes to the acceptable uses of the Unity game engine, Epic announced it was partnering with Improbable to launch a $25 million fund to help bring developers they believe affected by these changes towards solutions that are more open and would have fewer service compatibilities.^[68] Epic launched a $100 million prize pool in February 2019 for Fortnite-related esports activities that it plans to run from 2019 onward.^[69] To expand its esports initiatives, Epic Games hired Nate Nanzer from Blizzard Entertainment and their commissioner of the Overwatch League in May 2019.^[70] At the 2019 Game Developers Conference, Epic announced it was launching a $100 million MegaGrants initiative, allowing anyone to apply for up to $500,000 in funding to support game development using the Unreal Engine or for any project, even if not directly games-related, that would benefit the Unreal Engine.^[71] One of the first major funded entities under this was the Blender Foundation in July 2019, having received $1.2 million from the MegaGrants funding, to help them to improve and professionalize their Blender tools for 3D art creation.^[72]

Epic Games was given the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Special Award in June 2019 for its past and continuing developments for the Unreal Engine,^[73] a software which also earned it the Engineering Excellence Award from the Hollywood Professional Association.^[74]

Epic announced in March 2020 it was establishing a new multi-platform publishing label, Epic Games Publishing. Alongside this, the label had announced three deals with developers Remedy Entertainment, Playdead and GenDesign in which Epic would fully fund development and publishing (including employee salaries, quality assurance, localization, and marketing) of one or more games from each studio, but leaving full creative control and IP rights to the studio, and sharing profits, following Epic's recouping of its investment, 50/50 with the studio.^[75][76] The company expanded their publishing options in October 2021 with Spry Fox and Eyes Out.^[77]

Unreal Engine 5 was announced on May 13, 2020, with plans for an early 2022 release. Alongside this announcement, Epic released its Epic Online Services, a free SDK toolset for online matchmaking and other similar cross-platform play support features based on Fortnite. Epic further waived all Unreal license fees retroactively for games up through the first $1 million in revenue, regardless of how they were published, retroactively starting from January 1, 2020.^[78]

Bloomberg reported that Epic was nearing a $17 billion valuation in June 2020 once it had completed a new $750 million investing round from its previous investors and newcomings T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and Baillie Gifford.^[79] The company partnered with Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. to acquire distribution rights for Inception, Batman Begins and The Prestige as part of "Movie Nite" on Fortnite's "Party Royale" island. The film live streams were based on a user's country.^[80]

Across July and August, Epic raised an additional $1.78 billion in capital investment, bringing the company's post-money equity valuation to $17.3 billion.^[81][82] This included a $250 million investment from Sony, approximately a 1.4% stake in the company. The deal continues the two companies' technology collaboration after they had worked together on the development of Unreal Engine 5, but does not commit Epic to any exclusivity to the Sony PlayStation platform.^[83][84] Sweeney said that Sony had started talking with Epic about investing following the demonstration of the Unreal Engine 5 in May 2020.^[85]

Epic purchased Cary Towne Center in Cary, North Carolina, in January 2021, which had been scheduled to be closed and demolished after 2020, to be their new headquarters and campus, with the conversion to be complete by 2024.^[86]

Epic unveiled its MetaHuman Creator project in February 2021. Based on the technology from 3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel, the MetaHuman Creator is a browser-based application to allow game developers to create realistic human characters within a short amount of time starting from various presets, and then can be exported as pre-made models and animation files ready for use in Unreal Engine.^[87]

Epic announced a partnership with Cesium in March 2021 to bring its 3D geospatial data as a free add-on into the Unreal Engine.^[88]

In April 2021, Epic completed another $1 billion round of funding to support the company's "long-term vision for the metaverse", putting the company's valuation at $28.7 billion. The round of funding included another $200 million strategic investment from Sony.^[89][90] Sweeney remains the controlling shareholder with these additional investments.^[89]

The Information reported that Epic Games was launching a new scripted entertainment division in October 2021, bringing on three former executives from Lucasfilm to manage it, with initial plans for a Fortnite film.^[91]

In February 2022 Epic Games announced that at least half a billion accounts have been created on its platform.^[92]

Epic released the initial beta version of RealityScan, a mobile app that uses the tools from Capturing Reality and Quixel, in April 2022. RealityScan allows users to create 3D models that can be imported into Sketchfab using photos taken by the user.^[93]

Epic received another $1 billion each from Sony and from Kirkbi, the parent company of The Lego Group, in April 2022 for continued support of building out Epic's metaverse.^[94] These investments gave Kirkbi 3% ownership and increased Sony's to 4.9%.^[95] With these investments, Epic had an estimated valuation of $32 billion.^[96] Epic and Lego also announced their partnership to build a child-friendly space in the metaverse that same month.^[97]

The company announced in September 2023 that it was laying off 870 employees, along with divesting in Bandcamp to Songtradr and spinning off SuperAwesome into its own company. Sweeney said this move was needed to rein in spending, and did not anticipate there would be further layoffs in the future.^[98] Mediatonic reported a significant number of layoffs from their team, but remained part of Epic.^[99]

In 2008, Epic acquired Utah based Chair Entertainment, developer of Undertow.^[100][101] Summer 2009 saw the launch of Chair's Shadow Complex, an adventure game inspired by the Metroid series.^[102]

Epic announced in October 2018 that it had acquired $1.25 billion in investment from seven firms: KKR, ICONIQ Capital, Smash Ventures, aXiomatic, Vulcan Capital, Kleiner Perkins, and Lightspeed Venture Partners. The firms join Tencent, Disney, and Endeavor as minority shareholders in Epic.^[103][104] With the investment, Epic Games was estimated to have a nearly $15 billion valuation in October 2018.^[105]

Besides expanding support for Fortnite and the Epic Games Store, these investments allowed Epic to acquire additional firms. In January 2018, it was announced that Epic had acquired Cloudgine, a developer of cloud-based gaming software.^[106] The company also announced the acquisition of Kamu, a firm that offered anti-cheat software called Easy Anti-Cheat, in October 2018.^[107][108] A year later, in January 2019, Epic acquired 3Lateral and Agog Labs. 3Lateral is known for its "digital human" creations, using a combination of digital technology, motion capture, and other tools to create photo-realistic human subjects in real-time. Epic plans to add some of 3Lateral's features to the Unreal Engine.^[109] Agog had developed SkookumScript, a platform for scripting events in video games; on the announcement of this acquisition, Agog stated they will stop the development of SkookumScript to work more on Unreal Engine scripting support.^[110]

Epic acquired Psyonix, the developer of Rocket League, in May 2019. Epic and Psyonix have had a past history, as Psyonix was originally founded a few miles from Epic's headquarters and had contributed to Epic's Unreal Tournament.^[111][112] Besides ongoing support for Rocket League, Psyonix developed an arcade-style car racing game inside of Fortnite, named Rocket Racing, which was added in December 2023.^[113]

Epic acquired the Twinmotion visualization tool used in architectural design in May 2019 from Abvent, and which they plan to expand and incorporate into their Unreal Engine offerings.^[114][115] Epic acquired Life on Air, the developers behind Houseparty, a social networking service, in June 2019. The monetary terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.^[116] Epic later shuttered Houseparty's app in October 2021, though the team behind it was continuing to develop social apps for Epic's platforms.^[117]

In November 2019, Epic acquired Quixel, the world's largest photogrammetry asset library which makes 3D models of objects based on real-world high-definition photography. Epic plans to open Quixel's existing library of models to users of Unreal Engine, while the Quixel staff will continue to build out its assets within Epic.^[118][119] The company acquired Cubic Motion, a studio that provides highly detailed digital facial animations for both films and video games, in March 2020.^[120]

Epic acquired SuperAwesome, a firm that has developed services to support children-safe games and services around games, in September 2020, as to incorporate these elements more into Epic's portfolio and to offer to other developers, particularly for games built around Epic's vision of metaverse games.^[121][122]

Epic acquired the digital facial animation firm Hyprsense in November 2020.^[123]

In January 2021, Epic acquired RAD Game Tools, a company that makes a variety of middleware solutions for video game development which Epic plans to incorporate into the Unreal Engine. RAD's tools will still remain available outside of Unreal as well.^[124]

In March 2021, Epic announced it was acquiring the Tonic Games Group, which includes developers Mediatonic and Fortitude Games. Mediatonic's Fall Guys, a major success during 2020, would remain available on Steam while Epic would help to bring it to additional platforms.^[125] Epic buying Tonic Games Group falls under the company's broader plans of creating its own metaverse.^[126] Additionally in March, Epic acquired Capturing Reality, the developers of RealityCapture, a photogrammetry suite that can create 3D models from numerous photographs. Epic plans to integrate RealityCapture into the Unreal Engine.^[127]

Epic Games acquired ArtStation, a professional artists' marketplace, in April 2021. As part of the acquisition, ArtStation members would gain access to Epic's tools and support such as the Unreal Engine, while the ArtStation marketplace will reduce its take on purchases from 30% to 12%.^[128] In July 2021, Epic acquired Sketchfab, a marketplace for 3D models. As with ArtStation, the acquisition allowed Sketchfab to reduce its pricing structure, lowering its revenue cut on purchases to 12% and making their Sketchfab Plus level of membership free.^[129]

In November 2021, Epic Games acquired Harmonix, a music game developer, for undisclosed terms.^[130] Harmonix continued to support their existing games including Rock Band 4 and Fuser while building out Fortnite's musical experiences, adding a Fortnite Festival mode that mimics the note-matching gameplay of Rock Band in December 2023,^[113] and Epic's larger metaverse plans,^[131]

Epic acquired the indie music platform Bandcamp in March 2022. Bandcamp was expected to remain independently operated under Epic while gaining the benefits of Epic's backend services.^[132][133] In April 2023, Epic acquired Brazilian studio Aquiris and changed its name to Epic Games Brasil, with the intention to be used in Fortnite.^[134] In September 2023, Epic sold Bandcamp to music licensing company Songtradr.

Epic Games is known for games such as ZZT developed by founder Tim Sweeney, various shareware titles including Jazz Jackrabbit and Epic Pinball, the Unreal video game series, which is used as a showcase for its Unreal Engine, the Gears of War series which is now owned by The Coalition and Xbox Game Studios, Infinity Blade, Shadow Complex, Bulletstorm, and Fortnite.^{[citation needed]}

Epic is the proprietor of five successful game engines in the video game industry. Each Unreal Engine has a complete feature set of graphical rendering, sound processing, and physics that can be widely adapted to fit the specific needs of a game developer that does not want to code their own engine from scratch. The five engines Epic has created are Unreal Engine 1, Unreal Engine 2 (including its 2.5 and 2.X releases), Unreal Engine 3, Unreal Engine 4 and Unreal Engine 5. Epic also provides support to the Unreal marketplace, a digital storefront for creators to sell Unreal assets to other developers. Further, since 2019, Epic has provided support for filmmakers which have utilized the Unreal Engine to create virtual sets for productions such as The Mandalorian,^[135] and will be backing major animated feature film production using Unreal, starting with Gilgamesh with studios Hook Up, DuermeVela and FilmSharks.^[136]

Epic announced its own Epic Games Store, an open digital storefront for games, on December 4, 2018, which launched a few days later with The Game Awards 2018 presentation. Differing from Valve's Steam storefront, which takes 30% of revenues (30/70 revenue-sharing agreement) from the sale of a game, the Epic Game Store will take 12%, as well as foregoing the 5% for games developed in the Unreal Engine, anticipating that these lower revenue-sharing agreements will draw developers to it.^[137][138]

Epic Online Services is a free SDK based on Epic's Fortnite code that allows developers to implement cross-platform play features in their games, including matchmaking, friends lists, leaderboards, and achievements, with support for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android systems. It was first released for all in May 2020.^[78] Support for anti-cheat and voice chat was added in June 2021.^[139]

Other productivity products include ArtStation, Sketchfab, Twinmotion, RealityCapture, RealityScan and Quixel. Epic and Autodesk partnered in September 2022, making Twinmotion available to Revit subscribers.^[140]

The MetaHuman Creator is a project based on technology from three companies acquired by Epic—3Lateral, Cubic Motion, and Quixel—to allow developers to quickly create realistic human characters that can then be exported for use within Unreal.^[141] Through partnership with Cesium, Epic plans to offer a free plugin to provide 3D geospatial data for Unreal users, allowing them to recreate any part of the mapped surface of Earth.^[142] Epic will include RealityCapture, a product it acquired with its acquisition of Capturing Reality that can generate 3D models of any object from a collection of photographs taken of it from multiple angles,^[143] and the various middleware tools offered by Epic Game Tools.

On July 19, 2007, Canadian game studio Silicon Knights sued Epic Games for failure to "provide a working game engine", causing the Ontario-based game developer to "experience considerable losses".^[163] The suit alleged that Epic Games was "sabotaging" Unreal Engine 3 licensees. Epic's licensing document stated that a working version of the engine would be available within six months of the Xbox 360 developer kits being released. Silicon Knights claimed that Epic missed this deadline and that when a working version of the engine was eventually released, the documentation was insufficient. The game studio also claimed Epic had withheld vital improvements to the game engine, claiming they were game-specific, while also using licensing fees to fund the development of its own titles rather than the engine itself.^[164]

In August 2007, Epic Games counter-sued Silicon Knights, alleging the studio was aware when it signed on that certain features of Unreal Engine 3 were still in development and that components would continue to be developed and added as Epic completed work on Gears of War. Therefore, in a statement, Epic said that "SK knew when it committed to the licensing agreement that Unreal Engine 3 may not meet its requirements and may not be modified to meet them".^[165] Additionally, the counter-suit claimed that Silicon Knights had "made unauthorized use of Epic's Licensed Technology" and had "infringed and otherwise violated Epic's intellectual property rights, including Epic's copyrighted works, trade secrets, know how and confidential information" by incorporating Unreal Engine 3 code into its own engine, the Silicon Knights Engine.^[165] Furthermore, Epic asserted the Canadian developer broke the contract when it employed this derivative work in an internal title and a second game with Sega,^[166] a partnership for which it never received a license fee.^[167]

On May 30, 2012, Epic Games defeated Silicon Knights' lawsuit and won its counter-suit for $4.45 million on grounds of copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and breach of contract,^[168] an injury award that was later doubled due to prejudgment interest, attorneys' fees and costs.^[169] Consistent with Epic's counterclaims, the presiding judge, James C. Dever III, stated that Silicon Knights had "deliberately and repeatedly copied thousands of lines of Epic Games' copyrighted code, and then attempted to conceal its wrongdoing by removing Epic Games' copyright notices and by disguising Epic Games' copyrighted code as Silicon Knights' own".^[169] Dever stated that evidence against Silicon Knights was "overwhelming", as it not only copied functional code but also "non-functional, internal comments Epic Games' programmers had left for themselves".^[169]

As a result, on November 7, 2012, Silicon Knights was directed by the court to destroy all game code derived from Unreal Engine 3, all information from licensee-restricted areas of Epic's Unreal Engine documentation website, and to permit Epic Games access to the company's servers and other devices to ensure these items have been removed. In addition, the studio was instructed to recall and destroy all unsold retail copies of games built with Unreal Engine 3 code, including Too Human, X-Men Destiny, The Sandman, The Box/Ritualyst, and Siren in the Maelstrom (the latter three titles were projects never released, or even officially announced).^[170]

On May 16, 2014, Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy and a Certificate of Appointment was issued by the office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, with Collins Barrow Toronto Limited being appointed as trustee in bankruptcy.^[171]

Since as early as 2017, Tim Sweeney had questioned the need for digital storefronts like Valve's Steam, Apple's iOS App Store, and Google Play, to take a 30% revenue sharing cut, and argued that when accounting for current rates of content distribution and other factors needed, a revenue cut of 8% should be sufficient to run any digital storefront profitably.^[172] When Epic brought Fortnite Battle Royale to mobile devices, the company initially offered a sideloaded package for Android systems to bypass the Google Play store, but eventually also made it a store app.^{[173][174][175]}

On August 13, 2020, Epic Games updated Fortnite across all platforms, including the iOS and Android versions, to reduce the price of "V-Bucks" (the in-game currency) by 20% if they purchased directly from Epic. For iOS and Android users, if they purchased through the Apple or Google storefront, they were not given this discount, as Epic said they could not extend the discount due to the 30% revenue cut taken by Apple and Google.^[176] Within hours, both Apple and Google had removed Fortnite from their storefronts stating the means of bypassing their payment systems violated the terms of service.^[177][178] Epic immediately filed separate lawsuits against Apple and Google for antitrust and anticompetitive behavior in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.^[179] Epic did not seek monetary damages in either case but instead was "seeking injunctive relief to allow fair competition in these two key markets that directly affect hundreds of millions of consumers and tens of thousands, if not more, of third-party app developers."^[180] In comments on social media the next day, Sweeney said that they undertook the actions as "we're fighting for the freedom of people who bought smartphones to install apps from sources of their choosing, the freedom for creators of apps to distribute them as they choose, and the freedom of both groups to do business directly. The primary opposing argument is: 'Smartphone markers [sic] can do whatever they want.' This is an awful notion. We all have rights, and we need to fight to defend our rights against whoever would deny them."^[181]

Apple responded to the lawsuit that it would terminate Epic's developer accounts by August 28, 2020, leading Epic to file a motion for a preliminary injunction to force Apple to return Fortnite to the App Store and prevent them from terminating Epic's developer accounts, as the latter action would leave Epic unable to update the Unreal Engine for any changes to iOS or macOS and leave developers that relied on Unreal at risk.^[182][183] The court granted the preliminary injunction against Apple from terminating the developer accounts as Epic had shown "potential significant damage to both the Unreal Engine platform itself, and to the gaming industry generally", but refused to grant the injunction related to Fortnite as "The current predicament appears of [Epic's] own making."^[184] In September 2020, Epic Games, together with thirteen other companies, launched the Coalition for App Fairness, which aimed for better conditions for the inclusion of apps into app stores.^[185]

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued her first ruling on Epic Games v. Apple on September 10, 2021.^[186] Rogers found in favor of Apple on nine of ten counts brought up against them in the case, including Epic's charges related to Apple's 30% revenue cut and Apple's prohibition against third-party marketplaces on the iOS environment.^[187] Rogers did rule against Apple on the final charge related to anti-steering provisions, and issued a permanent injunction that, in 90 days from the ruling, blocked Apple from preventing developers from linking app users to other storefronts from within apps to complete purchases or from collecting information within an app, such as an email, to notify users of these storefronts.^[188][189] Rogers' ruling was upheld at the Ninth Circuit on appeals, and the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the case, leaving Rogers' order against Apple in place.^[190]

Google initially sought to negotiate with Epic but later filed their own countersuit against Epic for breach of contract. The Google case was set as a jury trial, held in November and December 2023. Prior to this, other groups had filed their own lawsuits against Google for similar reasons as Epic, including a coalition of states and the Match Group, but these were settled just ahead of the trial.^[191][192] The jury found for Epic on all claims made, determining that Google maintained a monopoly on the Android marketplace by how it managed the Play Store and used its leverage as a big tech firm to make deal with partners, including some deals made as a result of the earlier settlements. A second phase of this trial to determine remedies is scheduled to occur in January 2024.^[193]

In December 2022, Epic Games was fined a combined $520 million after the Federal Trade Commission accused the company of separate accounts related to Fortnite, one for violating COPPA related to children's privacy by collecting personal data without parent or guardian consent, exposing children and teens to potential harassment, and a second related to misleading users into making unwanted purchases while playing the game.^{[194][195][196][197]} Epic Games said "No developer creates a game with the intention of ending up here. The laws have not changed, but their application has evolved and long-standing industry practices are no longer enough. We accepted this agreement because we want Epic to be at the forefront of consumer protection and provide the best experience for our players. Over the past few years, we've been making changes to ensure our ecosystem meets the expectations of our players and regulators, which we hope will be a helpful guide for others in our industry."^[198]

Since the partial investment by the Chinese company Tencent, some consumers have become wary of Epic Games' reliability and use of their data, particularly in relationship with the Epic Games Store. These concerns have been connected to broader issues of general distrust of the Chinese government and Chinese corporations among some Western video game players. Epic has stated that Tencent does not have access to any of this private data nor provides this to the Chinese government.^[199][200]

In late March 2020, accusations began circulating on social media that the Epic Games social networking app Houseparty led to other services such as Netflix and Spotify being hacked. However, both Epic and Life on Air claimed this was a smear campaign against its product and offered a $1 million bounty for anyone able to substantiate their claim.^{[201][202][203]}

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• Crecente, Brian (May 1, 2016). "Their future is Epic: The evolution of a gaming giant". https://www.polygon.com/a/epic-4-0. 
• Huddleston, Tom Jr. (August 9, 2018). "'Fortnite' launched battle royale a year ago today – here's how the company behind the billion-dollar game was founded by a college kid". https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/12/epic-games-company-behind-fortnite-was-founded-by-a-college-kid.html. 
• Griffith, Erin (August 25, 2020). "To Fight Apple and Google's Grip, Fortnite Creator Mounts a Crusade". https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/technology/fortnite-creator-tim-sweeney-apple-google.html. 

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