Epic released a press statement today to several larger news outlets, including Gamasutra, stating that Too Human developer Silicon Knights has filed a suit against Epic. The lawsuit stems from alleged abuses by Epic concerning the licensed Unreal Engine 3. According to Silicon Knights’ lawsuit, Epic, “Rather than provide support to Silicon Knights and [their] other many licensees of the Engine…intentionally and wrongfully has used the fees from those licenses to launch its own game to widespread commercial success while simultaneously sabotaging efforts by Silicon Knights and others to develop their own video games.”

The basis for this claim centers on Silicon Knights’ accusation that Epic failed to provide a functional iteration of Unreal Engine 3 to Silicon Knights within six months of the release of final Xbox 360 development kits, as stipulated in their contract with Epic. Silicon Knights claim that Epic failed to do this with both the 360 and the PS3.

Silicon Knights’ claims that they are not the only one that has been affected by this and that there are several other companies that have been mistreated as such by Epic. The suit alleges that these companies were affected as such in order to make Epic’s game look better than the other companies who were licensing their engine. Silicon Knights has claimed that this is the reason that they had such an infamously poor showing of Too Human at E3 2006.
Epic’s Vice President, Mark Rein, has stated that the claims in the suit are, “unfounded and without merit and we intend to fully defend against them.”

As indicated in the lawsuit, Silicon Knights have continued work on the project with their own engine since May of 2006, removing and replacing elements of UE3.

We’ll keep you updated as more news is made available.

Chufmoney