Unreal Engine adds Flash support

Earlier today, Epic Games partnered with Apple to show off the former's iOS-exclusive Infinity Blade 2 at the latter's iPhone 4S unveiling event. And even though Apple's multipurpose gadget still doesn't feature full support for Flash Player, that's not stopping its game-focused partner from getting involved with Adobe.

During a keynote address at Adobe's MAX 2011 conference today, Epic founder and technical director Tim Sweeney announced that the Gears of War development studio would be supporting Adobe Flash Player 11. Sweeney underlined the announcement by showing off a version of 2007's Unreal Tournament III running inside Flash.

"With UE3 and Flash, games built for high-end consoles can now run on the Web or as Facebook apps, reaching an enormous user base," Sweeney said in a statement released by Epic. "This totally changes the playing field for game developers who want to widely deploy and monetize their games."

While the idea of a browser-based Unreal Tournament III may intrigue gamers, such a project isn't likely in Epic's plans. Just last month, Epic Games president Mike Capps told Forbes that the company had no Unreal Tournament projects in the works.

Originally released in November of 2007 on the PC, Unreal Tournament III found its way to the PlayStation 3 the next month, with an Xbox 360 edition trailing in July of 2008. For more on the game, check out GameSpot's review of Unreal Tournament III.