Chalk this up as some pretty good PR for the video game studio behind the popular Gears of War franchise.
Epic Games said this week that it has entered an agreement with government contractor Applied Research Associates' (ARA) Virtual Heroes division to license the game developer's Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) gameplay platform to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other U.S. federal agencies and departments, as well as allied governments around the world.
UE3 will be used to build training tools such as "a multiplayer crime scene training simulation" for the FBI as part of a new federal government project called the Unreal Government Network (UGN), Epic Games said in a statement on Tuesday.
"We recognize the growing market needs of our government customers and are excited to have Virtual Heroes provide a full spectrum of focused services and support using our game engine technology," said Epic Games president and board member Dr. Michael Capps, formerly a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. and the lead programmer, designer, and producer of the U.S. Army's recruitment video game, America's Army.
Epic Games, which has hauled in more than $1 billion in lifetime sales with its three Gears of War titles and also created the Unreal series of first-person shooters, said other UGN projects in the works include decision-making games, an anesthesiology training application for Army physicians, and a HumanSim platform for medical education and training.
Virtual Heroes is Epic Games' designated partner for Advanced Learning Technologies (ALT) development, the Cary, N.C.-based game developer said. The "long-term, multi-platform" reseller and support agreement between the two firms covers development projects for a host of software and hardware platforms, including Apple's iOS and Google's Android mobile operating systems, Adobe Flash, the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U game consoles, and Sony's PlayStation Vita handeld game console, as well as PCs and Macs.
"Virtual Heroes is committed to providing world-class support to our licensees to ensure that all UE3 solutions achieve the best possible results across multiple platforms," said Jerry Heneghan, founder of Virtual Heroes and the director of ARA's HumanSim product development, in a statement. "Our technical and creative staff is uniquely qualified to provide a new standard of responsive, personalized service to government customers worldwide."
Epic Games said representatives of the two companies would be revealing the latest UE3 features available for game developers at the Defense GameTech Users' Conference being held in Orlando, Fla. this week.
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