UDK for iPhone & iOS Now Available

Unreal Development Kit, or UDK, is now available to download for developing on the iOS platform. UDK offers the same Unreal Engine behind hit games like Unreal, Gears of War, and the recently released iPhone hit Infinity Blade.

The kit offers multiple tools a developer needs to create impressive 3D visualizations and graphics for the iOS platform including Unreal Editor and various lighting, scripting, cinematic, and particle designer tools. Additionally, UDK includes the full source code to the iOS game “Epic Citadel” so you can see a working example of just how everything operates together.

UDK for iOS: Windows-based iPhone Development?
Now here comes the odd part, despite the UDK release supporting iOS development, the current beta tools only run on Windows. This is odd for two reasons; one, and most obviously odd, all other iOS development must be done on a Mac through the iOS SDK; and two, UDK running on Windows means that Windows based developers can now build and deploy iOS applications directly from Windows to an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad (at least for testing purposes).

The Silver Lining: Infinity Blade is Just the Beginning
While this Windows-only limitation is sure to frustrate many Mac based game developers, the potential upside to consumers is this; the Windows gaming world is already full of great games that are built with UDK’s Unreal Engine. This means, theoretically at least, that complex games like Gears of War, Mass Effect, Medal of Honor, and Unreal Tournament 3 could come to the iPhone and iPad some day in the near future. So while Infinity Blade is undoubtedly impressive, it’s very likely just the tip of the coming iOS iceberg of graphically rich games.

Check out the UDK demo video below, it’s a pretty impressive walkthrough:

UDK is free to download and use for personal and educational use, but any commercial use requires a $99 fee and a royalty share of 25% beyond $5000 in revenue.

You can read more about the UDK for iOS December Beta release at UDK.com or you can download it directly from the developers site.