NCsoft Corporation announced today that it has reinforced its partnership with Epic Games. The online games publisher has licensed Unreal Engine 3 for the development of two unannounced MMO games. NCsoft games in the past that have incorporated versions of the Unreal Engine include Lineage II and the upcoming Exteel.

"Unreal Engine 3 has a well structured rendering pipeline, and its graphical quality is superb thanks to advanced lighting and shadowing systems," said Young-muk Choi, lead programmer, Development Unit, NCsoft. "Tools within the Unreal Editor empower us to instantly produce and optimize our outputs, and we especially love how the engine enables designers to easily prototype concepts without the need for programming."

"NCsoft pioneered online game development using Unreal Engine, as evidenced by Lineage II, one of the most commercially successful and enduringly popular online games in history," said Jay Wilbur, vice president of Epic Games. "We are thrilled to take this next step with NCsoft, and are fully committed to supporting their projects. We expect to be completely wowed by what they do with our latest technology."