FBI Joins Gaming World Via Unreal Games Engine—For Training

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has gone into the serious gaming business for training purposes, as it enters into a licensing agreement with games developers Epic Games and Virtual Heroes for the use of the Unreal games engine.

BBC reports today that the FBI will use the Unreal games engine software for training purposes, disclosing further that other US agencies are also involved in the licensing deal.

Unreal powers popular game titles such as Mass Effect 3, Batman: Arkham City and Infinity Blade.

Unreal game engine owners revealed that the deal is a long-term agreement aimed at enabling technology support on web browsers, consoles, and mobile devices.

No details on the financial terms of the agreement yet, but an earlier statement had been made available to media, stating that an agreement had been reached for the use of the same games technology between the developers and the U.S. Intelligence Advanced Research Projects (IARPA) worth $10 million.

IARPA reportedly plans to use the engine building what it calls Serious Games that mean to tackle instinctual biases in the course of their research.

The FBI, meanwhile, supposedly plans to use the engine to develop a virtual multiplayer crime scene for agents’ training.

US army medics, who will likewise make use of the Unreal program, will expectedly practice their skills on an application that allows for training in anesthesiology.

On the other hand, US agencies engaged in advanced weapons development will make use of the games engine as a visualization tool.

One of the engine’s developers, Virtual Heroes, earlier used Unreal to create America’s Army 3, a Call of Duty-style video game designed for the promotion of recruitment to the US armed services.  It also helped develop Zero, a program used to help emergency workers train for mass casualty events such as terror attacks.

Source: BBC

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Laurentiu is a young writer, who seeks to become a big name in the news field. He discovers his passion for writing in primary school and starts with short essays in his mother tongue. In college he begins writing essays in English as a freelancer, being attracted by news reporting. Now he’s the one who brings you the latest news as soon as they happen! He’s a soccer fan, music enthusiast and loves to travel.