Epic Games issues first round of Unreal Dev Grants

Epic Games has revealed the first three Unreal Dev Grant recipients, with each developer gaining at least $15,000 in funding.

Last month, Epic announced a new scheme that would have it handing out up to $5m in grants for developers using Unreal Engine 4, and this week the studio made good by revealing the first three selections.

Mike Buttsney – the lone game developer out of the initial winners—has been provided $15,000 for the development of Dead Static Drive, an upcoming driving horror game with a comic book aesthetic.

French artist Koola received $18,000 for a project that uses Unreal Engine 4 to create architectural visualisations and outdoor scenes, while audio engineer Jake Kaufman and artist Jessie Seely have also received $18,000 for their VR project Nuren: The New Renaissance – what they describe as the world’s first virtual reality rock opera.”

Epic previously stated that grants range from $5,000 to $50,000, and stressed that devs and artists retain ownership of their IP and are free to publish the final products however they desire.