Gears Of War 2: Behind The Scenes In Production
Wednesday, Mar 05, 2008 - 05:00 PM Updated: 05:28 PM
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CARY, N.C. - One of the most anticipated video games of the year will be on shelves before the holiday season, and its being developed right here in the Triangle.
After working on it in secret for months, Cary-based Epic Games announced a couple weeks ago that Gears of War 2 will be ready by November.
When the first go-round sold more than 4.5 million copies, there was little doubt that a sequel would be on the way.
"We've really had a lot of success. We're making comic books, action figures, even a movie," said Epic President Mike Capps. "So it's been huge for us."
The production value for Gears of War 2 is on par with big-budget movies; actors rehearse dozens of times for cinematic segues, while programmers work on turning it all into game play.
"We're going to sell three billion copies of Gears of War 2," said Capps, with tongue firmly in cheek. "There's going to be some people on the planet who don't have copies. They're going to be mostly people who don't have Xbox 360s I think."
At the root of the game's success is what Epic calls their "Unreal Engine."
It is cutting-edge technology that they sell to all kinds of game developers, allowing programmers to manipulate amazing visuals in every part of game's environment.
As with the entire industry, Epic has evolved. It's a little more than just a bunch of games filled with a vast array of gun-toting characters.
"We work with a lot of more serious applications," said Capps. "Virtual Heroes, right down the street, is using our engines to work with disaster threat reduction and medical simulations and we're used in architecture. We're even used for movie studios, using our engine tech to make a game and a movie at the same time."
Capps said Epic's got an eye-popping amount of technology, which is not too shabby for a company that started in the basement of the founder's parents' house.
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