Epic lands controlling stake in People Can Fly
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Unreal maker scoops up majority share after collaborating with the Polish studio on PC Gears of War; two collaborating on all-new mystery game.
Polish studio People Can Fly has a new air traffic controller, as Epic Games today announced that it has acquired a majority stake in the Painkiller developer.
The two companies began working together last year when People Can Fly approached the makers of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 to evaluate the Unreal Engine 3 for a multiplatform title.
Since then, People Can Fly has worked on the PC version of Gears of War and is currently helping Epic design an all-new, unnamed intellectual property. Epic president Dr. Michael Capps explained that the 50-person studio's impressive contributions prompted the company's investment. "Working with this team of guys who love making over-the-top shooters was a blast, and we didn't want it to end," the executive said. "And their work was outstanding. The multiplayer levels they created for Gears PC look as good or better than the original."
For the studio's part, People Can Fly co-owner Adrian Chmielarz said working with Epic will alleviate some of the stress that goes along with being an independent developer, allowing his team to focus on making games. To date, People Can Fly has released the original Painkiller, the expansion pack Battle Out of Hell, and the Xbox spin-off Painkiller: Hell Wars. PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 2 installments of Painkiller were also announced in 2006. However, with no updates on either version since mid-2006, their current status is unclear.
People Can Fly's current project--the jointly developed intellectual property with Epic--is set to be shopped around to publishers this week at the Leipzig Games Convention.
Last year, THQ and People Can Fly joined up to work on a new intellectual property. However, that title was reportedly canceled earlier this year.
By
Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor
Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.
35 comments
@ jake696 Gears was good, bit far from the best of all time. It was aslo overrated because of the graphics.
Everybody knows that the new mystery game will be Gears of War 2 or some kind of sequel to the best of all time
I whould like to see the next PAinkiiler but with much higher dificulty & using the unreal 3 engine ...so maybe by these we can see the limits of hte UNREAL3 engine for its many caracters that it can support on screen ! I've been playing bioshock demo at max on my 2900 XT & R6V & alltough the effects are superb there are some areas were the textures are very faded ... it mite be the thing that jhon carmack whas talking !
I thought they were working on a game called "People Can Fly" at first. Now, that's an awesome title for a game. It's a shame.
posted by diablobasher Oh great. Epic gets more fingers in more pies. Your becoming worse than EA! GET LOST! ------------------------------------------------------------ Dude what are you talking about?!? I don't see Epic releasing a barely updated sports game EVERY YEAR.
Yeah I like both developers. People can fly did a very good job with painkiller they were one of the first to actually use real physics by integrating the havok physics engine into there game engine. The game was most importantly simple yet fun. The game was also original which seems to be a key word game makers forget these days.
THE NAME LIES. *Ahem* That's a pretty cool thing that Epic essentially bought the studio that made Painkiller.
Painkiller was an effing kick @$$ game!!! Hopefully they can pull something like that off again and help bring back the days when a FPS game was an FPS game. Running and gunning FTW! ...bysmitty
It's not every day you see Epic complement a development team for making levels that are on par or even better than their own work. I'll try to keep an eye on what they've got in the pipeline now....
Ha Epic tries to do something positive to calm down the bad press they're getting...maybe unrelated but still.
I wonder what the new game will be like, the Painkiller games were pretty cool, even considered underrated even though there wasn't alot to them gameplaywise.
This is good news. The Painkiller games (on PC) were really good underrated horror shooters. Their sense of world and creature design will be awesome in UE 3, especially since they're working with Epic and have access to better tools.
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