Epic Games has acquired the technology and business of RAD Game Tools, a video game software development company whose products and technology appear in close to 25,000 games and are leveraged by the world’s leading gaming companies, including Epic.

Together, Epic and RAD plan to integrate RAD’s powerful technology into Unreal Engine to benefit the developer community and gamers alike.

As graphics in game development and beyond become more photorealistic and powerful, developers need best-in-class compression software that can manage increased data requirements without compromising quality. Members of the RAD team will partner closely with Epic’s rendering, animation, insights, and audio teams, integrating key tech and improvements across Unreal Engine and beyond. RAD and Epic combining forces will allow even more developers access to tools that make their games load and download faster, and offer their players a better, higher quality video and gaming experience. 

RAD will continue supporting their game industry, film, and television partners, with their sales and business development team maintaining and selling licenses for their products to companies across industries - including those that do not utilize Unreal Engine.

"We know first-hand how impressive RAD’s compression technology is, having used it to improve the load time and quality of our most popular games – including Fortnite. The RAD team includes some of the world’s leading compression, video and game dev tooling experts, and we are thrilled to welcome them to the Epic family,” said Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri.

"Our work with Epic goes back decades, and joining forces is a natural next step given our alignment on products, mission, and culture. We both believe that solid technologies enable developers to build beautiful, performant, and reliable experiences. We're excited and humbled to join the amazing Epic team," commented RAD Game Tools Founder and CEO Jeff Roberts.