Rumor: Epic Working On New MMO

You may remember a few months ago we reported here on Blend Games that there was an MMO-clone of Gears of War, it was codenamed Project E by Korean MMO developers GameHI. As you know, that game is pretty much strictly staying in the Southeast territories. However, that doesn’t mean Epic isn’t working on a new Gears of War MMO project of their own.

What we do know is that they are hiring and one of their positions happens to be a server programmer for scalable systems. Meaning, they need someone who can program a system that can adjust to volume and growth, to put it simply. Being that scalability is being used in conjunction with a server programmer, you can nearly presume that this could imply a system model designed for MMOs (given that they fit this description perfectly). They’re also looking to fill a number of other positions as well, indicating a new game is in the works.

Another detail that leans toward a new MMO is that they recently joined up with ViVox for their Integrated Partnership Program for the Unreal Engine 3. What does ViVox do? Among other things, provide software platforms with integrated community voice support in MMOs.

Regarding the MMO being Gears of War… it is and is not a possibility. There have been talks about the game expanding out as the new Star Wars of fandom according to an article on TheGameReviews. Making the franchise into an MMO is a risk but could pay off in the long run (i.e., World of Warcraft). A better possibility of the new project could be an Unreal Tournament MMO, simply given that it's already designed for that kind of interaction. But the poor sales of UT3 make it a less likely candidate.

We’ll keep you posted on any further developments regarding this scenario. Be sure to stay tuned in with Blend Games for more news and info regarding all things gaming.

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