INQ interviews Tim Sweeney

ONE OF THE best points of trade shows is meeting the industry greats and asking them lots of questions. We bring them to you in a series we call "Interviews with the [insert topic here] greats", and this time, we present part one of our GDC interview with Tim Sweeney.

You may know Tim Sweeney from his work on the Unreal series, both the game and the engine. Most gamers know Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Unreal 2, Unreal Championship, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Championship 2, and Unreal Tournament 3.

On the engine side, you can see Tim's handiwork in the licensed Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 2, Unreal Engine 2.5 and Unreal Engine 3. Talk about a wide range of games and engines, who knew the company was so versatile?

We sat down with Tim on the last day of GDC, and asked the tough, no-holds-barred questions that make NDA'd people squirm. Things are slightly paraphrased because we didn't actually record it, but what the heck. Enjoy.

Tim Sweeney, with card for scale

The Inquirer (RL): You have been doing the Unreal Engine for over a decade now. When are you going to make a Real engine?
Tim Sweeney (TS): On January First, 2031, the engine will become sentient.

If there was ever a more blatant backhanded glove to the face of Skynet, I can't think of it. The war is on, Terminator beware. You heard it here first. µ

Note
The interview will continue with Part 2 tomorrow in which Tim discusses Larrabee performance in detail.