Epic acquires facial animation company Cubic Motion, who worked in Battle for Hell

Epic Games has acquired Manchester-based facial animation company Cubic Motion.

Yesterday, both Epic Games and Cubic Motion announced the news.

Cubic Motion is responsible for creating automatic, performance-driven facial animations for titles such as "God of War", "Blade of Hell", "Sacrifice of Senua", "National Anthem", "Dark Pictures"; "Medan", "Marvel Spider-Man", "Metro Exodus", "Horizon: Zero Dawn", "Call" Duties: World War II, etc.

It also created live demos, such as "Hell's Blade: Senua's Sacrifice Live Character Performance at GDC 2016" and "League of Legends" Akali Live Character Performance in the LoL Pro League.

The company said it will continue to work with existing developers and partners.

"We are excited to join Epic Games and are excited to look forward to the next chapter of our story," said Dr. Gareth Edwards, CEO of Cubic Motion. "In short, we are in a unique position to advance the development of digital human technology and bring more realism and immersion to all forms of visual entertainment."

Cubic Motion said in another statement: "Our commitment to meeting the needs of the video game industry has not changed-we intend to continue to be the partner of choice for developers who need the most compelling digital roles."

Epic Games Chief Technology Officer Kim Libreri said in a statement: "Facial animations conveying the most subtle human expressions are essential to travel through Mystery Valley, thanks to GI.biz."

Last year, Epic Games acquired Serbian 3Lateral, known for its digital human technology.

"We believe that combining Epic's Unreal Engine with 3Lateral's facial rig creation and Cubic Motion's solving technology as a whole is the only way to address this challenge and eventually reach the pinnacle of digital human art with Unreal Engine," Libreri added.