Epic Games Flirts, Removes Something ''Unreal''

Epic briefly flashed gamers with a teaser shield saying it's Unreal, and it's almost here.

Apparently, we missed the big Epic Games show yesterday, as various sites are reporting that the company's site disappeared and was replaced by a teaser image encompassing the entire screen. The image was shield-like and contained a sun rising over a planet's atmosphere. "It's Unreal," the heading stated. "And it's almost here."

What exactly is almost here? Unreal 3? That was our first guess. Perhaps the new title will be Unreal Championship 3. Whatever it is, the heading doesn't offer anything major in the clue department. After all, "unreal" describes most of the company's body of work: the Unreal Engine, the Unreal franchise, the Unreal Tournament franchise, and the Unreal Championship franchise.

As Kotaku pointed out, the teaser more than likely doesn't reveal an Unreal Engine 4-related announcement, as Epic Games president Mike Capps said during the Tokyo Game Show that the engine is currently years away from release. Hey, for all we know, another Gears of War title is heading to retail shelves this holiday season.

Today, gamers will discover that the website has returned to its normal activity--the mystery shield is no longer greeting curious visitors. SCRAWL reports that several threads in the Epic forums were asking about the shield, however those were being deleted as they appeared.