New Epic IP to be "radically different" than anything beforehand, says Capps

That new IP that Epic Games is announcing this weekend? It's "radically different" than anything it's done before, president Mike Capps has said.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at Game Connection, Capps said the project came through the need to try something "different."

"It's something radically different for us. New IP, new game. We're not really talking much about platform or anything like that, but I mentioned at GDCE Europe and my keynote there that we were working on a lot of new projects, and it's been really refreshing to the team to try some new things," he said.

"We love Gears, it was a great trilogy, we've gotten a lot of great compliments and a lot of great fans, and we're still supporting Gears 3 very strongly, but I've got guys that have been on it since 2001, and some of them need a break and to try something new.

"So this is going to be one of those projects where we try something totally different, and it just went 'boom', because everyone had this pent up energy to do something new. And I can't wait for them to get back to something like Gears in the future, because it's sort of our bread and butter, and they're going to be more energised for it to."

Capps admitted it was also scared of the reaction it would get from fans of the company when the announcement drops in near 72 hours time.

"I'm so scared that people will just say "oh yeah, that looks like an Epic game, oh sure" because I want them to see it as a departure, but I don't want anyone to say "that doesn't look anything like an Epic game, forget it, I'm not interested." So we're actually nervous, we haven't been nervous like this for a while!

"I'm nervous, this is something I pushed for a lot and I wrote some of the script for the trailer and if everyone hates it that's it, I'm out of games for a while."

The new IP, being made out of Epic's North Carolina studio, will be announced by Cliff Bleszinski in Los Angeles this Saturday at the Spike VGAs.