Epic's Mark Rein "absolutely loves APB", may buy 'closing' MMO

A new possible suitor has just turned up for Realtime Worlds’ APB MMO, which is apparently set to close within 24 hours. Epic Games is sniffing around.

Epic has their ”hands full” with Gears of War 3, Bulletstorm and Project Sword but they haven’t denied ”confidential” talks could be going on.

The administrators for Realtime Worlds now defunct outfit said that ”APB is coming to a close,” despite everyone’s ”best efforts to keep the service running.” Apparently none of the 6 finalist suitors were ”comfortable with buying it as a live operation,” they said.

APB was then condemned to just 24 hours more life before it gets the plug pulled. Now a report has Epic Games as a possible savoir and it’s stirred further by the fact that Epic themselves aren’t denying any of it, whilst not confirming anything either.

”Mark absolutely loves APB, and everyone here loved what they saw,” said Dana Cowley of Epic Games, referring to boss Mark Rein. ”We’ve got our hands full of Gears of War 3, Bulletstorm and the recently announced Project Sword. If any talks like that are going on, then they would be confidential.” APB creator Dave Jones is believed to be in the US now.

Mark Rein demoed APB at last year’s PAX and the MMO is built using the Unreal Engine 3. There may yet exist some hope for Realtime World’s last big gasp? The Dundee-based studio may be dead but its progeny could move on - MyWorld already has.