This year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo will have a string of special awards intended to celebrate the best gaming and VR experiences — the wizardry that makes games truly exceptional.
Years of arduous labor often go into crafting these games, and this awards program, co-hosted by Epic Games and GamesBeat, will honor those traditional and VR experiences running on Epic’s Unreal Engine that stand out for creativity, visuals and technical achievement.
The eligibility criteria is pretty simple: You must have used the Unreal Engine to create your demo, which must make an appearance at E3 2015.
“Epic’s Unreal Engine has become the gold standard with many game developers, powering games as diverse as Street Fighter V to the VR experience of EVE: Valkyrie,” said Dale North, the senior editor at GamesBeat. “By showcasing all the amazing new games running on the technology, we’ll be delivering unique content that our audience will love.”
We’ve broken the awards down into several categories, giving honors for special achievements for graphics, physics, and narrative. (See below for all of the award categories.)
GamesBeat lead writer Dean Takahashi and North will spearhead these awards and will make live presentations at E3, as well as give full ongoing coverage to the winners on GamesBeat.
“The goal of this awards program is to work with GamesBeat to recognize the talented, hardworking, creative developers and publishers pushing the boundaries with our tech,” said Ray Davis, the general manager of Unreal Engine at Epic Games. “We’re celebrating all the different types of projects being made with Unreal, from independent projects to VR experiences and big budget games.”
Nvidia is also joining in the awards and will donate its new GTX 980 Ti 4K gaming graphics card to each of the award recipients.
Convinced you have what it takes to be a contender?
Give Epic a heads up that your Unreal Engine-powered game or VR experience will be at E3 by emailing E32015@unrealengine.com. No formal application is required to be considered for an award.
The award categories
360 Degrees of Amazing: Pushing VR forward.
All the Feels: Best emotional experience in a game.
Everything Is Awesome: It just feels good.
Eye Candy: Best in class graphics.
I Like the Way You Move: Great use of physics.
Love at First Sight: Best new IP.
Raddest Explosions: Fire! Fire! Fiiiiireeee!
That’s Unreal!? The least-expected game to use Unreal.
Through the Looking Glass: Awesome new VR experience.
Unreal Underdog: The small team that shows up in a big way.
Watercooler Moment: That one E3 thing that everyone will be talking about.
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