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A few things in this life are certain: Oprah will have a new book for you to read every month and you can bet there's a new Gears of War in the works. Edge says a source has put a pin in April 2011 as the release window for the third entry in Epic's series -- and we should expect the first teaser trailer next month, on April 8, with a full-on reveal at E3 in June.

"Microsoft's keen to avoid a clash with Halo: Reach and wants Natal to own Christmas," alleges Edge's source. "That's why we won't be seeing Gears Of War 3 until next year, but expect a major marketing push ahead of its release."

Recently, Epic prez Mike Capps hinted at a major game announcement to be made by the studio during E3. Additionally, EA has teased a "Shooter from Epic" due just before April in Q1 2011.

While Metroid director Yoshio Sakamoto may not have played Shadow Complex, the XBLA darling's creators definitely played Metroid. During a panel titled "Designing Shadow Complex," Chair Entertainment Creative Director Donald Mustard encouraged the audience of prospective downloadable game makers to embrace genre limitations. "So, genre is one of your limitations because you aren't just competing against other games that are released in the downloadable space," Mustard said, pacing across the stage. "You really are competing against Gears of War, Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2. That is the real competition and you need to find a way to differentiate yourself from those kinds of games. And that is an awesome opportunity."

For Mustard, that meant moving "orthogonally" from what the "big $60 retail games" are doing. Mustard said, "For us, what that ultimately meant is target an old and abandoned genre. Which to us was kind of this Metroidvania side scroller adventure genre that had been abandoned. No one was making games in this genre. And we said, 'What if we took that genre and fused that with some of the modern sensibilities that had come out; some of the modern ideas of AI and physics and graphics? That would be a really cool combination.'

"Save your fork, there'll be pie. The game is the fork and the pie is the DLC." –Cliff Bleszinski

After confessing to having a big appetite for Borderlands, the Gears of War developer used the pie analogy to explain to Joystiq how games without any sort of DLC "hooks" are becoming increasingly rare.

Carrying on in the longstanding Epic Games tradition of offering up free upgrades to existing products, the developer, publisher and game engine creator announced this morning that it will be adding Steamworks support to Unreal Engine 3. "With Valve offering these services free of charge, the idea of providing the Steamworks SDK [software development kit] to all Unreal Engine licensees was a no-brainer," Epic VP Mark Rein notes in the announcement.

As it turns out, Valve offered up the development tools to UE3 developers (via Epic) without charging a single penny. That said, this isn't just a philanthropic gesture on Epic's part, but rather a strategy aimed at targeting the large stable of games powered by Unreal Engine. "Epic's technology is one of the most widely used engines in the industry and has powered many of the best games created in the past 10 years, on multiple platforms," Valve prez Gabe Newell proclaims.

That's really the crux of it -- bring in the Unreal Engine 3 users and they might stick around to purchase some other games on Steam. It's a bit of a sneaky trap (and a smart business move to boot), but it's one we wouldn't exactly be upset about falling for.

While we've yet to see Unreal Engine 3 ported to Nintendo's Wii or Sony's PSP, Epic did undertake the considerable task of squeezing its seemingly ubiquitous middleware platform onto Apple's similarly ubiquitous iPhone. According to Epic's Josh Adams – Epic Games' senior console programmer – that could be due to fundamental hardware limitations in the other platforms. You see, the iPhone 3GS has a PowerVR SGX graphics processor which supports programmable shaders. According to Adams, "Programmable shaders are something UE3 is pretty much dependent on."

Though you're probably most familiar with Unreal Engine on Windows, Xbox 360, and PS3, Adams says the engine also runs on Nvidia's Tegra 2 platform, on Linux, and on Mac, though (Adams notes) "we haven't shipped any games on those platforms yet." Adams says the iPhone port was "a fun 'Can we get UE3 onto the iPhone?' kind of project." Though Adams' presentation was exceptionally technical – this is the Game Developers Conference, after all! – it's fascinating to hear about the technical underpinnings and workflows that result in this type of outcome.

As has become custom, Epic has announced that it will be showing off new Unreal Engine features during a press conference at GDC 2010. Some of the new features include a new "procedural artist-driven tool" for creating buildings and new tool for "continuous branching objects such as roads, sidewalks, tentacles, roots, vines, cabling, and railway tracks." A new foliage demo -- which will be viewable in 3-D -- is set to highlight the engine's new features. In addition to its Unreal Engine 3 conference, Epic will also host live demonstrations of the upcoming Realtime Worlds MMO, APB.

Joystiq will be on hand for both events, so stay tuned for coverage next week.

Epic Games president Mike Capps is already teasing some kind of new announcement at E3. Speaking to VentureBeat at the Interactive Achievement Awards, Capps responded to a question about possible new games by saying that "We might have a new one coming. I think E3 is going to be really exciting for fans of Epic." You can see him make this statement on video after the break.

It might have a new one coming? Shouldn't he know? What kind of company doesn't keep its own president in the loop? Oh, we get it. He's being coy. So what's this new game? It could be the "Shooter from Epic TBA" listed in EA's schedule for early 2011. Which could be People Can Fly's "Bulletstorm." We suppose "fans of Epic" would be happiest with a sequel to one of the company's franchises, so a new Unreal, Gears of War or even Shadow Complex is always a possibility. It's probably not a new Jill of the Jungle. Which is too bad.

[Thanks, Fintan!]

"I find this talk offensive." -- A half-joking independent developer listening to Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games and Epic's Mike Capps discussing being independent studios at DICE.

But, how do we define independent? And is it different from being "indie?" We know that Mega 64 has a violent reaction about the latter question.

Now, it's hard to imagine Mike Capps, who swims in a pool of Unreal Engine cash, being defined as independent. He even dryly stated during the conversation, "We became Microsoft five years ago." However, Chris Taylor, whose company doesn't have an engine that runs many of the games out there stated, "My children will probably not go to college because of Demigod." He also mentioned that in 2008 the company went from 125 people to 45 and then had to build back up again. But does a company's bank account make it independent or is it a state of mind?

In fairness, Mike Capps was a last minute replacement for Double Fine's Tim Schafer, so the original pairing may have been less jarring. But, the indie developer got us thinking: what are the lines that define the perception of independence?

Sure, it might resemble a large iPod Touch to some of us, but to the folks who get paid the big bucks to make games -- such as Epic Games VP Mark Rein -- the iPad looks like opportunity. Speaking to Gamasutra at this week's big unveiling event, Rein said "I really like the device and I think it's going to be great for gaming." And considering his company's Unreal Engine 3 is popping textures in and out of view on the iPhone already, it's no surprise that he said it's a "pretty safe assumption" to bet that the engine will make its way to the iPad.

Like the iPhone game developers we spoke with yesterday (and our own wishes for what we'd like to see on the device), Rein hopes that devs will "take advantage of the differentiated form factor of the device." And hey, with all that extra screen space, we have to imagine that at least a quarter of Marcus Fenix's enormous husk is now able to fit into view! It's called innovation, folks, ya dig?

In many ways, Shadow Complex finds itself in similar standing as Rock Band and Guitar Hero; it's a style of game Konami has left for its competitors to refine and perfect. Taking its cues from the Metroids and Castlevanias of the world, the Xbox Live Arcade-exclusive title was able to stand out in 2009, regardless of its forgettable storyline and poorly constructed characters. As an overall experience, Shadow Complex was the best downloadable experience of 2009 -- and one of the year's overall best, for that matter.

Shadow Complex is a prime example of a developer -- in this case, Chair -- designing a game best suited for its platform and skyrocketing past expectations. It proves that 2D exploration and adventure can still have a meaningful impact if approached correctly. Sadly, Konami has decided against bringing new Castlevania experiences of this style to consoles and only now (since 2004's Metroid: Zero Mission) has Nintendo decided to return Samus closer to her roots in the upcoming Metroid: Other M (another game revealed at E3 2009).

It's no surprise that Shadow Complex resonated with us (hell, we dedicated quite a bit of time to the game), and while we weren't left mouth-agape at its originality, the entire experience left us craving more. We have yet to satisfy that craving, as no additional content has been delivered for the game since its August 19, 2009 debut.

Beyond its excellent blend of shooting and platforming, and its tremendous value (only $15!), Shadow Complex stands out as one of the best experiences we've had all year. It simultaneously resurrected our love of the 2D exploration genre and our inner speedrun freak, and is a testament to the maturity of the download space on consoles within the last few years. We hope the franchise will be with us for the long haul.

Put down that can of Imulsion energy drink, friend, 'cause we've got some good news for you (and we wouldn't want you to choke, you know). The original Gears of War has arrived on Xbox Live's Games on Demand service, making it that much easier to get ready for next year's big announcement from series creator Cliff Bleszinski (spoilers: it's probably Gears of War 3!).

For the usual $19.99, all 6GB of Marcus Fenix's Locust murder opus can be yours -- without all that pesky 'physical media' nonsense -- through the Xbox Live Marketplace (except in Japan, sorry!). We've linked it below of course, for your convenience.

Shortcut: Add Gears of War to your Xbox 360 download queue (via Xbox.com)

If you have an Xbox Live Gold subscription and have yet to experience the joys of Shadow Complex, it's time for you to stop reading this post. You see, Shadow Complex has been marked down to 800 for one week and one week only. It was already a steal at 1200 ($15) and $10 is absolutely ludicrous. Go buy it. Now. We'll even help you out with a handy shortcut link. You should click it. Your friends will make fun of you if you don't.

Shortcut: Add Shadow Complex to your 360 download queue [Via Xbox.com]

Mike Capps is a member of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences where he serves as one of its board directors. He is the President of North Carolina-based Epic Games, the developers behind the Unreal and Gears of War series, and the seemingly ubiquitous Unreal Engine.

AIAS: What's the biggest challenge you see facing the industry?
Mike Capps: Game development has grown so fast as a business, but not nearly so fast as a profession, and you see the growing pains regularly.

What's your favorite part of game development?
I love the people; so many fascinatingly cool people are in game development. I really enjoy playing a game, and then meeting the people behind the game, and understanding how they think. Shipping a game, developing a game engine, and running a company... they're all insanely complex maximization problems. What do you with your time and your money, every day, to make the best game, the most profitable company, the best technology? It's a blast.

With Shadow Complex setting very specific week-one sales records on XBLA, Epic and Chair would be kind of nuts to not consider a sequel. One job listing out of a recent crop on Microsoft's employment boards seems to out that likely scenario, implying that Shadow Complex is a bona fide franchise for Microsoft Game Studios and Epic. Said listing specifically calls for a Lead Producer to "lead the publishing side of games made by Epic: Gears of War and Shadow Complex."

Additionally, Microsoft appears to be looking for more able bodies to join its growing pool of Project Natal and 343 Industries employees. Existing job listings call for everything from designers to engineers to even a few artists. Sadly, the company isn't looking for MJOLNIR armor models yet, but just in case, Microsoft, you know how to reach us.

[Via Develop]