The upcoming free-to-play Marvel Heroes MMO will be powered by Unreal Engine 3, according to a press release from developer Gazillion Entertainment.

"We love Unreal Engine 3's streaming system. It's made our entire technical approach possible and is easy to work with," said Jeff Lind, studio director of Gazillion's Secret Identity Studios. "We also love the flexibility we get from the actor components, which have empowered us to make all kinds of customizations without sacrificing the built-in features of the engine."

Secret Identity Studios Art Director Josh Book added, "Our artists love the Unreal Content Browser, the visual art pipeline, and how functional UE3 is with different 3D packages. We had assets in the game within hours of starting work with the engine. In addition, Unreal Lightmass is a very advanced global illumination tool that has helped push the look of our game further than we thought it could go."

"Capturing the distinctive moments of such revered fiction within a game environment is no small task, and it's critical to use the very best tools and technology to deliver the production values fans expect," said Joe Kreiner, North American licensing manager, Epic Games. "Having grown up with Marvel's iconic heroes and villains, we're really honored to help Gazillion and Secret Identity achieve their creative vision and quality bar for the game."

Tripwire has released to the public the UEd executable for Red Orchestra 2. It has been available in limited form for a while now and the mod and mapping community is already busy creating custom content for the game.

Three of the featured mod currently underway are Rising Storm, In Country Vietnam (see teaser trailer below), and Iron Europe. More can be seen at the Tripwire Interactive forums

It's awesome to see official UEd support and hopefully more licensees follow suit.

UDK-powered Q.U.B.E. launches today on Steam and for a limited time is 15% off. Check out the gameplay below.

Yesterday Epic Games announced that the Infinity Blade franchise has amassed earnings of more than thirty million dollars. The original title pulled in more than twenty three million, while Infinity Blade II has already hit the five million mark in the month it has been on the market.

One of the most popular gaming franchises to be launched on the App Store, the award-winning series has also created significant licensing interest in the underlying Unreal Engine 3 technology from developers worldwide.

Further fueling franchise momentum is the recent release of Infinity Blade II, which has seen net earnings in excess of $5 million in just one month since release on Dec. 1, 2011, a mark which took the original title three months to achieve. Infinity Blade II is on pace to exceed the record success of the original Infinity Blade game, which has grossed more than $23 million to date. Additional franchise extensions include Infinity Blade: Awakening, a digital novella from best-selling author Brandon Sanderson, Infinity Blade: Original Soundtrack, which features original music from the games, and Infinity Blade FX, a big screen, coin-op version of Infinity Blade now featured in arcades nationwide.

Infinity Blade II was one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2011 and received dozens of accolades, including several perfect scores and Editors Choice awards. IGN scored the game a "Perfect 10" and named it their 2011 Mobile Game of the Year. USA Today awarded Infinity Blade II another perfect score, calling it "A Masterful Mobile Epic." Infinity Blade II was crowned Game of the Year by Slide to Play and Touch Gen, and named Mobile Game of the Year by GameSpot and G4TV, among others. Infinity Blade II was also named among E! Online's 'Top 10 Games of 2011,' one of the 'Best Apps of 2011' by Entertainment Weekly, and was cited by Mashable in its '5 Major Trends that Changed Digital Entertainment in 2011' feature.

"The success of the Infinity Blade franchise is testament to our talented team who is devoted to making games we want to play, all while using Unreal Engine technology to redefine what is expected from games on iOS devices," Epic Games President Dr. Michael Capps said. "We have so much more in store for players, and will continue to make great content for Apple's evolving platforms."

The UDK dual-stick shooter, Waves, has been garnering praise recently. Developer, Rob Hale, explains:

The game picked up a Golden Teabag at the #Indievisibility awards for "Best use of the Unreal Engine" which was lovely and as far as I'm concerned means Waves is better than Gears of War 3. It's had a series of 8/10 reviews including one from Eurogamer which by all logic means it must be at least as good as Uncharted 3 and as such I should be insulted by receiving such a terrible score. I'm not though. It was lovely.

It's also been the recipient of a recent upgrade, adding a new mode and achievements. Check out the gameplay video below. Once again, Mr. Hale:

Well now to top off the month the game has received a free update on Steam that includes a sixth completely new game mode imaginatively called "Chase" which I have dubbed "The Speed Metal of Shmups". There are also 28 new Achievements to whore many of which were suggested by the community and a few of which have been named in their honour (A new achievement for hitting the games score cap is called "I Am FPDrummond" who was the first player to reach it).

If you haven't picked it up already, you're in luck as it's currently part of the Steam Holiday Sale and is 25% off alone, or grab it in the Awesome Pack along with nine other really solid indie titles.