Under terms of the agreement, Midway obtains worldwide publishing rights for the three Unreal titles from Epic, including Unreal Championship® 2, an Xbox® exclusive title scheduled to ship in 2005, and two future installments of Unreal Tournament® on PC and upcoming next generation consoles. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Only Korean PC rights were excluded from the deal.
"This relationship with Epic further bolsters the strength of our portfolio of top-rated games and allows us to leverage the marketing capabilities of our organization to take the Unreal franchise to an even broader audience of gamers," said David Zucker, president and chief executive officer of Midway. "It immediately establishes Midway as a leader in the PC games sector. Additionally, Unreal Championship 2, scheduled for introduction in February, should further extend Midway's growing track record for distributing top quality games. We are delighted that Epic chose Midway over other publishers and we look forward to working closely with the Epic team to carefully manage this valuable franchise."
"Midway gets it. They hit right at the heart of gamers. Not only did they create many classics including Defender, NFL Blitz and Mortal Kombat, but they're making great new games such as Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, The Suffering, NBA Ballers, NARC and Area 51. They make awesome games and don't apologize for it, so we think games like Unreal Tournament will fit in perfectly here," said Mark Rein, vice president and co-founder, Epic Games. "In our opinion Midway is doing the industry's best marketing and promotional campaigns and they will contribute strongly to the ongoing success of the Unreal franchise."
Scheduled to arrive exclusively for Xbox in February 2005, Unreal Championship 2 brings a whole new level of intensity to the series as gamers are blessed with superhuman agility that arms them for battle against deadly characters or readies them for hand-to-hand melee combat. Taking the battle online and around the world, Unreal Championship 2 pits players against each other in an eight-person Xbox Live!™ multiplayer challenge where only the strong survive. Built from the ground up for the Xbox, Unreal Championship 2 features all new gameplay elements, including a deep melee combat system that seamlessly blends in with the ranged weapon combat the series is known for, a full story-driven single-player mode, dozens of all new maps, new game modes and an arsenal of new weaponry. Additional information can be obtained through the Unreal Championship 2 web site at www.unrealchampionship2.com.