After iOS gadgets, Unreal Engine 3 comes to the Mac

After bringing its Unreal Engine 3 to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, Epic Games yesterday announced (via MacStories) the free Unreal Development Kit beta for OS X which finally lets developers write games for the Mac based on the latest and greatest version of the Unreal Engine. Epic Games explained in a blog post:

Unreal Engine 3 supports developing for Apple’s Macintosh platform for easy cross-platform distribution. The development process is virtually identical for games to be run on the Mac platform, but the packaging and deployment process does require some additional steps.

Hopefully, this development will pave the way to Gears of War and Unreal Tournament for the Mac, which we were promised four years ago.

The latest release of the Unreal Development Kit also enables multi-display support for iOS via either HDMI cable or AirPlay technology. Currently, iOS games Infinity Blade and RAGE HD utilize Epic Games’ engine, but more titles are to be released by LucasArts and Gameloft. Both games publishers licensed the engine for use in iOS games and Gameloft promised to release N.O.V.A. 3 as their first Unreal engine-driven game. The latest beta of the Unreal Development Kit can be downloaded here.