Unreal Engine 3

On March 27th, NCSoft announced the licencing of the Unreal Engine 3 for two unannounced, top-tier massively multiplayer online games.

NCsoft has used Unreal Engine in the past, shipping Lineage II, and the soon to be released Exteel, using Unreal Engine 2.

Through this licensing agreement, NCsoft will be able to take advantage of the latest enhancements to Unreal Engine 3, including:

o massive world support,
o multi-processor support,
o dynamic ambient occlusion (i have no idea what this means),
o fracturing tool and runtime (nor that),
o realistic crowd system
o ..and much more.

“Unreal Engine 3 has a well structured rendering pipeline, and its graphical quality is superb thanks to advanced lighting and shadowing systems,” said Young-muk Choi, lead programmer, Development Unit, NCsoft.

Note that NCsoft does not buy the Engine itself, but the right to use it for future projects. Developers and publishers around the world have also licensed Unreal Engine 3 for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.