Mark Rein: "Possible" that Samaritan could become a full game, UE4 when next consoles arrive

After dropping enough jaws to cause a minor seismic event during last week's GDC, Epic's been unsurprisingly inundated with questions. Question numero uno? "Gee willikers golly goodness gosh, will we ever be able to play that?"

We might have paraphrased a bit.

"I'm not going to deny that that's possible, but at the same time, if we hadn't had built that technology demo, then we wouldn't have been able to build Gears of War. It's like, once we build a technology demo and learn how to do things a certain way, it then enables us to do more of that. So I don't want to deny that such a scenario is possible, but it's not currently [happening]," Epic's Mark Rein told 1UP when asked about the possibility of the gorgeous Samaritan tech demo being turned into a full game.

Of course, with such an impressive demo comes a natural follow-up question: Is this Unreal 4? Epic, however, has explicitly stated that the Deus Ex-like demo was still Unreal 3 born-and-bred. So, what's the deal with Unreal 4? Rein explained:

"What we've done in the past is that we draw the line with the console generations. I don't want to pigeon-hole Unreal Engine as a console-only technology - it's also mobile, handheld, and PC technology. But so far, that's how it works. When these new ultra-mass market home entertainment devices come out and set a new bar, that's when you'll see us clicking over to 'Unreal Engine 4' - which will support those features and who knows what else."

Click through the link for the full interview, which is just about the most informative thing we've seen on the subject yet. Definitely worth a read if your morning needs more trench coat-clad men staring wistfully in the rain. And seriously, who's doesn't?