Epic Unleashes Newest UDK, Complete With IOS Support

Epic Games’ newest beta of the Unreal Development Kit – a free edition of the popular Unreal Engine – has been released into the wild. The most noteworthy addition to this iteration is the integration of tools for making iOS games and applications, functionality that was previously reserved for commercial license holders. Chair Entertainment recently showcased the potential Epic's product holds for iOS development with the release of Infinity Blade and the supplementary Epic Citadel app.

“With the tremendous success of Infinity Blade, we couldn’t be happier to put our free tools into the hands of iOS developers all over the world. We’ve proven what Unreal Engine 3 can accomplish on mobile, and we’re ready to usher in a new wave of amazing handheld games and applications,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games.

Highlights of the new kit can be found below.

UDK’s iOS development feature set includes:

• The full source and content for “Epic Citadel,” plus an additional castle demo map
• Support for major Unreal Engine 3 desktop features, including the award-winning Unreal Editor and its fully integrated suite of tools including Unreal Kismet, Unreal Cascade, and Unreal Matinee
• Superior rendering systems, including Unreal Lightmass global illumination supported by Unreal Swarm distributed computing
• Content streaming functionality: Build huge, seamless environments
• Advanced lighting and shadowing such as per-pixel lighting and real-time shadows
• Console-quality capabilities: Make games with animations, particle effects and player collision
• Full Unreal Kismet visual scripting functionality: Create games without having to modify program code
• Convenient mobile previewer makes it possible to emulate games at native resolution for quick iteration
• UDK Remote enables iOS devices to serve as wireless controllers with full touch and tilt functionality for testing games on the computer
• New Unreal Frontend system compiles scripts and deploys builds for multiple platforms with the simple click of a button

Any aspiring developers plan on taking advantage of the offer? If so, you can download the UDK here.