Unreal Engine 4 expected to arrive on Windows Phone and Windows RT, but development is still a long way off

By Derek Kessler
published

Unreal Engine 4 is coming to Windows RT and Windows Phone. Someday. That's the word from Epic Games co-founder and CEO Tim Sweeney. The new game engine saw its initial release just last week for PC, and while iOS and Android are up next for Unreal Engine 4 development, they're also keeping their eyes on the mobile operating systems out of Redmond.

Said Sweeney on the Unreal Engine Forums:

We have been doing some work in this direction (implementing various levels of WinRT API support) and we want to have Windows Phone support eventually, but we're a very long way from having a ship-quality implementation.Right now our mobile efforts are really focused on iOS and Android based on their huge market sizes. We have a lot of work to do on these platforms before expanding to other mobile platforms such as WP.

Now that's no guarantee that Unreal Engine 4 will come to the mobile Windows platforms any time soon. After all, Unreal Engine 3 was released in 2005 and was first demoed on a Windows RT tablet in 2012. But that Windows RT and Windows Phone are on the roadmap for Unreal is a positive sign, unlike other development houses that are quick to dismiss them due to their smaller (but growing) market share.

Source: Unreal Engine Forums; Via: Engadget

Derek Kessler
Derek Kessler

Derek Kessler is Special Projects Manager for Mobile Nations. He's been writing about tech since 2009, has far more phones than is considered humane, still carries a torch for Palm, and got a Tesla because it was the biggest gadget he could find. You can follow him on Twitter at @derekakessler.

48 Comments
  • Nice
  • This news is unreal
  • Haha
  • Nice one sir.
  • All good
  • Great guys at Epic.
  • They have many ties to Microsoft.. They better be working on something for Windows.. Shhhhit.. Lol
  • Unreal Tournament on Surface 2 would be killer...
  • I know right... would be awesome!
  • Gonna have a Surface 3 by then
  • Meh.
  • Better late than never I guess
  • I hope it doesn't turn into the next "VLC for WinRT" :D
  • Oh no.. Don't say that! How long we've been waitinghhh
  • Isn't the Windows 8/RT userbase now bigger than both iOS and Android?
  • Android userbase is bigger than iOS, yet iOS is the preferred platform. It's all about where the money is.
  • Well that's crap, Apple is a rip off of a brand.
  • Kinda true, but i would say it also has to do with the hardware capabilities of the iphone devices.. they're more consistent in terms of performance because they technically only make one phone. the hardware requirements on WP kind of pose a similar condition, but the low marketshare still keeps them from getting the gears rolling a little quicker. 
  • Money is no object for MSFT users. There is something else to this.
  • Not to mention the rampant piracy on Android.
  • To true i believe iOS is prefered OS for developers over Android because of high piracy on Android an it is a probable fact higher % of users on iOS pay for apps i am guessing, I have windows phone an always pay for apps including WPCentral but with my galaxy note 10.1 I rarely if ever buy a app.. When was a iPhone user way back i paid for apps also..
  • Yes. I had an android tab. And an Android media player, and I *never* bought a single app..
  • Yea, I only bought gameloft apps via their website for 2€, never play store (around 6€) on android :D Now I actually buy apps from the store although its because of PayPal support. :) + I would most likely buy apps more often with 1 time purchase for both wp and w :)
  • Is there anybody left at Epic. It seems like everybody left.
  • They want market share. When WP gets its then what? I would never in my wildest dreams consider 50 million people as nobody. Oh well it is their lost.
  • Well, do you want to know the really pathetic part? They are supporting Linux. No one games on Linux, so their consumer base argument is a fucking lie.
  • Not yet...  But SteamBox = Linux...
  • You think those have a chance in hell?  Because I think they will be the Chromebook of Consoles.
  • I wouldn't bet against Valve. 
  • I've always wondered about that too. How can they look at 50 million and call it not enough? I think I'll ask them for 1 penny for each of the 50 million users they are dismissing. They will not part with $500,000 that easily to be sure. All of a sudden it's a lot of potential users to sell product too.
  • They are looking at 1 billion Android users and considering them more than 50 million WP users, same with iOS -devices.
  • Sweet....but IOS N ANDROID already got alot games they gud
  • "Unreal Engine 3 was released in 2005 and was first demoed on a Windows RT tablet in 2012" Well... Windows RT only came out in 2012 :)  It didn't exist before that. So it got it the same year. :P It took iOS several years to get an Unreal port, and even today it is not without problems. So i think Windows RT got an Unreal version pretty fast!  
  • If they build it, they will come.. The aura of smugness that persists against MS as a dev platform is quickly fading. Finally we can write once, port to all.. Including iOS and Android.
  • let's hope so.
  • late again. it's the WP song.
  • Your move, Crytek.
  • Wow!
  • I understand. They need to go to the OSes that have more marketshare.
  • This is why we can never have nice things
  • What was that game on Lumia 520 ?
  • Unreal Engine 4 supports WebGL, which should be coming to WP8.1 in IE11.  Crosses fingers.
  • Will it requires new hardware? Or it will work fine on currently Windows phone devices?
  • Thanks but no thanks. I'm very happy with the FREE Unity3D especially with the new 2D mode. With Unity I can deploy to ALL platforms NOW. And just like their users, most indie iOS/Android developers will not pay $19 per month subscription plus 5% of their profits when there's free software around. Oh and only C++, no Javascript or C# support? Good luck.
  • You do know that Unity won't deploy to WP, iOS or Android without an extortionate license fee, don't you?
  • No, the free version of Unity can deploy to WP, iOS and Android. "The free version of Unity for Windows. Includes publishing support for iOS, Android, Windows Store, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, desktop and Web, and a 30 day trial of Unity Pro (with Pro publishing for iOS, Android, Windows Store, Windows Phone and BlackBerry)." "Indeed, if your organisation’s annual turnover is less than USD100,000, you can download and keep the free perpetual license version of our software, use it to develop your content and pitch a prototype to investors or publish a commercial product to Android, iOS and Windows devices without it ever costing you a dime."  
  • Check out Blueprints. Visual scripting. No need for c++ (or c#). also, you can continue using ue4 after cancel subscription, you just don't get new versions. Blueprint template examples are very helpful, and I'll gladly continue paying if they keep cranking those out. I am very impressed with how far unity has come in such a short time.
  • This is good news, the UDK is a great piece of software, very easy to use. Nice to hear that WP and RT are on their roadmap.