Epic Games is one of the biggest success stories of the videogame industry. They made a splash ten years ago with their instant hit Unreal, a game that pushed the limits of hardware while largely reinventing the genre of the FPS. Then, Unreal Tournament created a multiplayer culture and was the reason for many late nights spent fragging friends and co-workers.

The Unreal 3 engine is one of the industries' current workhorses. After it made a spectacular debut in Gears of War, fueling the testosterone-filled adventures of Marcus Fenix and of the other Gears, it was used to power games as different as Bioshock, a GOTY candidate filled to the brim with atmosphere, and Mass Effect, a reinvention of the classical space-based RPG that largely took the Xbox by storm, resulting in a clear classic.

The Unreal 3 engine is currently licensed to a variety of videogame developers, which will use it to create everything from MMOs to shooters. Hey, we wouldn't be surprised if someone somewhere is thinking of using the Unreal 3 engine to make a RTS. Electronic Arts is the latest company to get an Unreal license for more than five of its upcoming and unnamed projects.

Tim Sweeney, the head of Epic, talked about how the next engine would prioritize console, next-gen consoles that is, over the PC, as the latter no longer has the power it needs to fuel a detailed and realistic engine. Now Mark Rein, a vice president of Epic, has released some more insights into the Unreal 4 engine.

He says that, at the moment, the engine is "just a research project today." He also commented: "Our plan is that it will be aimed at the next generation so it is many years away." Hey, if I had a perfectly capable powerful game engine sitting in my backyard, like Epic has Unreal 3, I would also say that my next project is years away. It just means more time to put the Unreal 3 engine to good use.