14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer Epic Games has announced that it has entered into a partnership with Virtual Heroes, a division of Applied Research Associates, in order to deliver solutions based on the Unreal Engine 3 technology to a number of departments and agencies in the United States government and in the leadership structures of allied nations.
The companies are also establishing a new entity called the Unreal Government Network which will handle the development and deployment of Unreal-based products.
The UGN projects include the Sirius program, which seeks to develop serious games that can enhance the decision making while playing down the effects of biases for those who take part.
In collaboration with the Duke University, Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center UGN also creates a training app for anesthesiologists in the Army and a more complex medical education and training program.
The FBI Academy is using Unreal Engine 3 to create a multiplayer training simulator for trainees.
Jerry Heneghan, the founder of Virtual Heroes and director of HumanSim product development at ARA, stated, “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.
“Our technical and creative staff is uniquely qualified to provide a new standard of responsive, personalized service to government customers worldwide.”
Dr. Michael Capps, the president at Epic Games, added, “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.”
At the moment Epic Games is working on a new generation of its Unreal Engine technology, which will probably be officially announced at the same time as the next console generation from Microsoft and Sony.
The company has already deployed a demo for the new features, called Samaritan.