Silicon Knights Says Unreal Engine is Broken

Yesterday we discussed Too Human's absence from this year's E3 event, and briefly mentioned the just-announced lawsuit between Silicon Knights and Epic. Today there's a bit of a clarification. Silicon Knights is suing Epic because, according to Kotaku, Epic failed to 'provide a working game engine' to SK causing them to 'experience considerable losses.' Essentially Knights argues that the Gears of War version of the Unreal engine was withheld by Epic so that Epic products could show up competitors at trade events. For a deeper look at this, the blog runs down the allegations in detail, and concluded by noting that a slew of next-generation titles slated to use the Unreal Engine have been delayed several times. This includes Stranglehold, BioShock, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect, Rainbow Six: Vegas, Turok, Frame City Killer, Fatal Inertia and Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway ... a somewhat persuasive list, when it's all laid out in front of you.

Epic In Deep Doodoo

[Anonymous Coward]

If it is even partially true that Epic has been funding development of their own titles by taking money from other developers and then botching or even worse failing to deliver on features or support Epic is done as a serious option for major game development houses.

At best Epic is incompetent in taking on the massive task of engine support for major commercial products without the staff or resources to be able to handle the job.

At worst Epic is outright guilty of fraud.

Why anyone would be crazy enough to entrust a AAA console title to a pc developer like Epic is a completely separate question.

Could the PS3 be part of the problem?

[LWATCDR]

Not I am not kidding but the PS3's programing model looks like a real bear to deal with I saw these comments in the article.

"Epic once again supposedly missed a deadline for an Engine Silicon Knights was going to use on a PLAYSTATION 3 game. Epic missed this deadline by six-months. A functional UE3 for the PS3 was supposed to be delivered by February 2007. It wasn't.

According to SK, the Engine apparently caused the game to "slow down significantly" due to lengthly load times and "memory-spikes" during loading. Epic apparently had known about this problem with the Unreal Engine since 2004 and promised a solution by 2005. It never came. "

I am not a big console gamer but didn't I hear that many of the "Hot must get" titles for the PS3 will not be out until March 08?
I have heard on Slashdot time and time again that the PS3 programing model will not be a problem because everybody will use game engines that will deal with it for you. Seems like the game engines are having some issues now.

Re:This Is Rumor Control - Money Grab In Progress

[Grave]

I'm doubtful this is a pure money grab. While that may be an outcome of the lawsuit, I think that there must be some truth to the claims made here. It's hard to believe it is just coincidence that a majority of the other UE3 titles have been delayed again and again. When discussing id Tech 5, Carmack made a mention that (wish I had the quote handy) unlike competitors, his engine was built fresh from the ground up so that it was a clean codebase, easily understood and modified, rather than an engine built upon an existing design, and that this made it easier for licensees to use. At the time, I found this quote rather strange, since so many devs were licensing UE3 and Source, so those engines couldn't be all that bad. But perhaps he was making a veiled reference to complaints he had heard about UE3?

Now, maybe SK really is the only one having problems here, and UE3 as delivered to them truly is a masterpiece of an engine. Or just maybe, they've got a little bit of a real gripe.

Sakaguchi doesn't seem to have problems

[wilgibson]

In an interview [gamespot.com] back in march with Sakaguchi he talked about UE3 and Blue Dragon development.

It's very good overall. Support has been outstanding. But the problem is, for example, Epic's Unreal Engine 3. It's developed in English, of course. And unless you've got programmers who can understand English or are bilingual...we've got numerous bilingual staff, programmers who are highly capable of speaking and understanding English, so they can understand the updated information and versions with respect to the development of UE3. But unless you've got programmers who can understand English, they actually can't read the materials. And even though translation takes place, there is a lag. Oftentimes when they read [about] a version, the very version that they read is outdated. So those are some of the challenges associated with the language barrier. That's one area that Microsoft is poor in: documentation.

Seems to me with the exception of it being in English, he had good things to say. Obviously you can't expect Epic(or MS in Sakaguchi's opinion) to have full translations of documents ready to go out the door when new code and features are done. But damn, if you've seen Blue Dragon and Lost Oddyssey you can tell Mist Walker has worked some magic with that engine. IMO, SK just wants to bitch! Too Human has been in development for how long... almost a decade? I don't think there is an inadequacy with the UE3 here, it's SK that has problems.

Re:This Is Rumor Control - Money Grab In Progress

[blincoln]

a company that has been pushing Too Human (the title in question) since 1999 (when it was being developed for the Gamecube)

A minor clarification here. That was actually the second unfinished/unreleased version of Too Human. It was originally under development for the Playstation at the same time as Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (released in 1997). IE it has been in progress for a decade or more.

I have half-jokingly suggested before that the unfinished Playstation and Gamecube versions should be included in a collectors' edition of the 360 version as a bonus for those of us who have been waiting patiently. Unfortunately, Silicon Knights does not seem to like doing that sort of thing.