EA has struck a deal with Epic Games to make use of the Gears of War uber-developer's Unreal Engine 3 in its forthcoming games. Specific next-gen titles which are to make use of the increasingly popular engine have still to be announced by the publisher.

In addition to Epic's massively hyped Gears of War and of course Unreal Tournament 2007, the Unreal Engine 3 is already being used on a number of major 360 and PS3 titles, including Bioware's Mass Effect and, contrary to recent rumours, Silicon Knights' Too Human.

EA joins the illustrious list of games publishers who have already signed up to use Unreal Engine 3 - a list which includes Microsoft, Sony, Atari, Midway, THQ, Buena Vista Games, Gearbox Software, Real Time Worlds, 10tacle Studios, TimeGate and the above-mentioned Silicon Knights and Bioware.

Epic's Mark Rein, commenting on the deal, clearly a very happy man indeed, said Epic was, "…obviously thrilled to license Unreal Engine 3 to EA, the world leader in our industry."

From the EA side of things, the company's studio president Paul Lee outlined that the strategy is to incorporate "…cutting edge tools like the Unreal Engine 3 and combine them with [EA's] own systems to create state-of-the-art development technology."

SPOnG will bring you more on specific EA titles which are to make use of Epic's technology as we get it. Plus of course, all the latest on Gears of War, as we know that regular readers are most likely to be just as interested in that news right now. Share this item on... Comments >>