Epic Games is an American video game and software developer based in Cary, North Carolina. It was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. After releasing one game under that name, ZZT (1991), Sweeney renamed the company to Epic MegaGames in early 1992 "to make it look like we were a big company" even though it had no other employees or offices.[1] Over the next few years, the company continued to make PC games, largely self-published, including the side-scrollers Jill of the Jungle (1992) and Jazz Jackrabbit (1994). They additionally published titles by other developers such as Epic Pinball (1993) by Digital Extremes and Tyrian (1995) by Eclipse Software. Epic also slowly expanded in size, reaching 8 employees by 1994.[1]
Beginning with the 1996 game Fire Fight, Epic ceased its publishing and self-publishing operations, and after the release and success of Unreal (1998) renamed itself in 1999 to Epic Games and moved to Raleigh, North Carolina; it and a temporary office in Canada during Unreal's development were the first time the company had a central office for their employees.[1][2] After the name change, the company focused almost solely on the Unreal series of shooters for the next few years, and expanded from PC games to console games. In 2006 the company launched its Gears of War series of games, and in 2010 the company moved into mobile games with the Infinity Blade series after purchasing Chair Entertainment. Epic returned to retail publishing in 2015 for its own titles, and has solely self-published since. In addition to games, Epic develops and licenses the Unreal Engine, which is also used as the game engine for many of its own games, and runs the Epic Games Store, a digital video game storefront for Microsoft Windows and macOS.[1]
Sweeney described the history of the company in 2016 as four eras: the shareware era from founding through 1997 as the company grew to 15 employees; the Unreal era from 1998 to 2005 as the company focused on developing that franchise through external publishers and grew to 25 employees; the Gears of War era from 2006 to 2011 as the company shifted focus to console games and grew to around 200 employees; and the current era where the company moved back to PC games and self-publishing, spinning off or closing some of its subsidiary developers such as People Can Fly and Big Huge Games.[3] This latter era has instead become dominated by the multi-platform Fortnite Battle Royale and related games, which is one of the most-played video game franchises of all time with over 350 million registered players.[4] Epic Games has developed around 40 games since 1991 and published over 20 more, and has multiple games under development.
Video games
Epic Games has used the names Potomac Computer Systems, Epic MegaGames, and Epic Games; the name given for the company is the one used at the time of a game's release. Many of the games under the Epic MegaGames brand were released as a set of separate episodes, which were purchasable and playable separately or as a group. In many cases the initial episode of a game was freely distributed as shareware to drive interest in the other purchasable episodes.[1] Titles are listed for games that gave individual names to their episodes instead of episode numbers.
Developed games
List of games
Title (Episodes)
System
Release date
Developer(s)
Publisher(s)
Ref(s)
ZZT ("Town of ZZT","Caves of ZZT","Dungeons of ZZT","City of ZZT")
In addition to publishing many of its own games, Epic published several titles by other developers in the early 1990s as Epic MegaGames before ceasing publishing operations. In 2020, it launched Epic Games Publishing as a new publishing wing.
^ abBest of ZZT and ZZT's Revenge were collections of ZZT games made by players with the included editor and submitted in a contest.[6][7]
^The 1994 CD-ROM release of Jazz Jackrabbit, titled Jazz Jackrabbit CD, contained three additional episodes named "The Lost Episodes". Additionally, two special holiday editions were produced (Holiday Hare, 1994 and Holiday Hare '95, 1995), each containing additional holiday-themed levels.[13][14][15]
^ abcdefgFortnite Battle Royale, Fortnite Creative, Fortnite: Save the World, Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, Fortnite Festival, and Fortnite Ballistic are all separate games which are accessed through the Fortnite launcher and share a microtransaction storefront.
^Fortnite Battle Royale was released for free early access on September 26, 2017, but this was later made the official release date, as the changes to the game became part of its ongoing nature rather than pre-release development[46]
^Battle Breakers was soft launched in Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines in April 2017[49]
^Fortnite: Save the World was released for paid early access on July 25, 2017, and was not changed substantially for its official release date[52]
^Brix had a followup release titled "Brix 2 Deluxe" which served as the registered version.
^Castle of the Winds was self-published as shareware by SaadaSoft in 1989, with "A Question of Vengeance" released for free and "Lifthransir's Bane" sold. The Epic Games version was a retail release of enhanced versions of both episodes.[56]
^Electro Man was an enhanced version of the original game, self-published by X LanD Computer Games in Poland in 1992 as Electro Body[60]
^ abcElectro Man, The Adventures of Robbo, and Heartlight were released together in 1994 by Epic as the Epic Puzzle Pack.[8]
^The MS-DOS release of The Adventures of Robbo was an enhanced version of the original game, published by LK Avalon in 1989 in Poland as Robbo for Atari 8-bit computers.[60]
^Solar Winds' second episode was released as both "Solar Winds: Galaxy" and "Solar Winds II: Universe"
^The Epic MegaGames release of Ken's Labyrinth was an expanded and enhanced version of the original game, self-published by Ken Silverman as Advanced Systems on January 1, 1993[63]
^Tyrian was re-released shortly after launch as Tyrian 2.0 with a fourth episode. It was later ported to Windows in 1999 (with a fifth episode named "Hazudra Fodder") as Tyrian 2000 without involvement by Epic Games. Additionally, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance versions were developed by World Tree Games but cancelled; the compiled game codes were released for free in 2007.[72]
^Fall Guys was published by Devolver Digital from August 4, 2020, until March 2, 2021, when its developer Mediatonic was purchased by Epic Games
^Unreal Tournament was made available to players on Windows, macOS, and Linux during development beginning on March 3, 2015, with these players able to contribute code or resources for potential inclusion in the game.[89] In December 2018 development was halted, though the existing game was still available to players[90]
^Spyjinx was made available as a beta to players in Malaysia and Australia in April 2020, but after the beta concluded a few months later no further announcements or releases were made.[92][93]
^Epic Megagames (1993-12-11). Xargon Preview (MS-DOS). Epic Games. Look for the shareware version on a BBS near you starting January 15, 1994 (in helpme file)
^Kalata, Kurt; Zverloff, Nick (2013-09-03). "Radix: Beyond the Void". Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on 2017-09-20. Retrieved 2018-04-04.
^Union Logic Software Publishing (1995-06-07). Radix: Beyond the Void Preview (MS-DOS). Epic Games. On July 1st, 1995 Union Logic will be releasing it's [sic] largest production to date. (in radix text file)
^ abClower, H. (2007-12-05). "Tyrian". Hardcore Gaming 101. Archived from the original on 2012-03-24. Retrieved 2019-01-11.
^Lafferty, Craig (1995-09-14). "Tyrian Released!". Epic MegaGames. Archived from the original on 1997-10-10. Retrieved 2018-04-06.
