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PLANO, TX - September 22nd, 2005 - Gearbox Software, L.L.C. and Epic Games announced today that they have entered into an a long-term agreement that will see Epic's Unreal® Engine 3 technology be the exclusive technology Gearbox uses for next-generation console and PC games for Gearbox-owned intellectual properties. Gearbox has previously licensed the Unreal Engine for the hugely successful Brothers In Arms Road to Hill 30, and upcoming sequel, Brothers In Arms Earned in Blood, on PC, Xbox and PlayStation2. Along with other original, unannounced next generation Gearbox titles, Unreal Engine 3 will power Brothers in Arms 3

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We have had a huge amount of success using the Unreal Engine technology on Brothers In Arms Road to Hill 30, which has sold about 2 million copies so far, and we're also using it on Brothers In Arms Earned in Blood." says Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Software, "We've used most of the major 3D engines on the market and without a doubt Unreal Engine 3 is the best. Epic's tools, technology and support are fantastic. We've chosen Unreal Engine 3 as the exclusive technology we will use for all of our own titles going forward into the next generation. We're confident that our ability to continue to create world-class titles will be enhanced by this choice.

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As the subtitle suggests, the game will once again put you in the role of a sergeant in the 101st Airborne Division as you make your way up Hell's Highway, a series of missions relating to Operation Market Garden in 1944. The road was used as a conduit into Holland as the Allies made their push toward Germany near the end of the war.

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The Operation Market Garden battlefields are diverse and interesting. There is Hell's Highway, of course, which earned its nickname because of the thousands of vehicles and men that were destroyed along its length during the fighting. There are cities, like Eindhoven, that were populated as fighting pushed control back and forth between the Germans and the Allies. Some of the cities were heavily bombed during the operation creating a landscape of destruction and death that the men had to fight through. There are many waterways cutting back and forth along the highway - this creates rivers and bridges and even marshy areas, all of which became battlefields or obstacles for the fights. There are wooded areas and open fields. Hills and plains. Lots of diversity - makes for tough, but interesting fighting.

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Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway puts you in the boots of Sgt. Matt Baker, a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne.

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Of course! There are real figures from history, including George Koskimaki who literally wrote the book "Hell's Highway." There are the Dutch civilians that were so helpful to the Allied liberators. And, of course, there are the men of Baker's squad - including some replacements for the men who fell at Hill 30.

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Having been promoted and assigned to a recon unit, Baker, Sergeant Hartsock and the rest of the squad are sent into Market Garden via glider.

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However, Baker now has three squads to command in battle instead of a fire and an assault team. Depending on the objective, you may have a machine gun crew, a bazooka team, a mortar squad or a radio man that you can additionally use to wreak havoc on an enemy's location.

This opens up the way that you would previously play the game and literally redefines the way that the Four Fs (Finding, Fixing, Flanking and Finishing an opposing force) are used. For instance, Randy related that you can setup the machine gun crew to continually suppress multiple enemy units, keeping them pinned down for fear of getting their head blown off. You could also use mortar crews to rain shells down on their head, use bazookas to destroy their cover, or have the radio man call in artillery strikes to obliterate dug-in soldiers. Environmental destruction plays a much larger role in Hell's Highway too, as structural shields like sheds, fences and other places can be ripped apart by fire from either side.

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There are many new features that are very relevant and very cool. There is a third team added to the squad. It is a special team that can be a machinegun crew, a mortar team, a bazooka crew or a radio operator. Soft cover, like wooden doors and fences and wood sheds, can be destroyed - torn apart by fire.

The command system has always been very elegant and easy to use, but we've enhanced it with some new capabilities that allow me to co-ordinate sneak attacks or group teams together to make it easier for us to manoeuvre together over distances.

One of my favourite new advances is the addition of what we're calling a "first person actor." The idea is that the player character is no longer a floating camera with a picture of a gun bolted to it at the bottom of the screen. The player character is an actual character in the world. You can see your own shadows, you can see your own body and your hands and feet. You can look down at your chest and see how many grenades you have left. When you vault over a wall, if you look down, you can see your hand plant on the wall and your legs swing over. There are tons of examples of where the first person actor really puts you in the world. It's great.

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You are a squad leader, but the scope of the battle and the scope of the environments is much more vast. A typical Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway mission area is at least 4x the size of a mission area in BiA 1 or 2. The scope of the combat is larger as well. There are more allies and enemies involved than ever before.

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"Bro-Mos." That's how Gearbox is referring to "brotherhood moments" in Hell's Highway, the third entry into the critically acclaimed Brothers In Arms franchise. These aren't canned, scripted moments of cheese that we've seen in other games, mind you. This is dynamic brotherhood. For instance, you can order one of your fire squads to hop over a wall and take cover across the street. Well, every now and then, one of those soldiers may trip and fall and one of his buddies will rush over, help him up, give him a pat on the behind, and continue bounding across the street. There are dozens of bro-mo's that occur randomly throughout the game adding to the realism, the character-driven and emergent gameplay that BIA is known for.

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It is a special team that can be a machinegun crew, a mortar team, a bazooka crew or a radio operator. Soft cover, like wooden doors and fences and wood sheds, can be destroyed - torn apart by fire.

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Now the company is hard at work on Hell's Highway, the third entry in the Brothers in Arms series and the first to make the leap to next-generation hardware, with forthcoming Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and DirectX 10-based PC versions.

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What I want everyone to do is to simply erase anything they've ever had in their minds about what they think Brothers in Arms multiplayer is. We're turning multiplayer on its head. Soon we're going to talk in great detail about multiplayer in Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. We're really excited about it.

"Dancing is a contact sport, football is a collision sport."- "Iron Mike" Ditka

Xbox Live Gamertag- Titans 2005

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12)Q: Are the maps larger?

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You are a squad leader, but the scope of the battle and the scope of the environments is much more vast. A typical Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway mission area is at least 4x the size of a mission area in BiA 1 or 2. The scope of the combat is larger as well. There are more allies and enemies involved than ever before.

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2nd Squad 3rd Platoon Fox Company 502 Parachute Infantry Regiment