Alongside the announcements of iTunes 10 and the new Apple TV, Epic Games President Mike Capps took the stage at Apple’s Fall Press Conference today to announce his company’s first game for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.
Developed by Epic-owned studio Chair Entertainment, the team behind last year’s Best Xbox 360 Game, Shadow Complex, the game--currently codenamed Project Sword--is a one-on-one multiplayer sword fighting game set in medieval times. Players will take control of a knight and duel other knights in portable, touch-screen-based sword duels.
What makes this project so interesting is that, much like the scaled down version of Rage, developed for the iPhone and running on id Tech 5, Project Sword is being powered by a scaled down version of the Unreal Engine, which means that the game looks way better than other polygonal games that have been released for the iFamily of hardware.
Let this serve as just one more reminder that engine developers going forward are even more concerned with the scalability of their tech; they want to develop engines that can run on any and all platforms, including cell phones.
Project Sword is aiming for a release later this year, but you don't have to wait until then to see the game's visuals in action. Following the show, Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski tweeted that a Project Sword engine demo was currently available for free on the iTunes store for the iPad, iPhone 4G, and iPhone 3GS. And if you don't want to go download that demo yourself, you can just watch Will and Norm over at Tested, as well as our own Brad Shoemaker, who have taken a look at that Unreal demo on video. If you want to get a sense of how the engine that powered Gears of War and Batman: Arkham Asylum translates into your pocket, check out the video!
