BAFTA has honoured Epic Games with a Special Award, presented at an event in Los Angeles during the E3 Show.

The award was made on 12 June at The London Hotel in West Hollywood. Tim Sweeney, Epic Games’ CEO and founder, accepted it on behalf of the company, saying: “It’s a great honour to be here as Epic’s spokesperson, especially for the work that we’ve done in the area of creativity in serving the needs of the film industry and game developers, and the work of hundreds of really world-class people all around the world. The team has worked so hard to make these things reality and create art and be recognised for it. I hope this is just the beginning of the quest. We’re trying to create a whole new world around digital entertainment and I think we’re just at the beginning of it.”

The BAFTA Special Award reflects the stunning number of strings Epic Games has to its bow, including the all-conquering Fortnite, its Unreal Engine technology which underpins many of the most successful games franchises and its Steam-rivalling Epic Games Store, which has been received with scepticism among some gamers but is beloved by developers and publishers.

Sweeney continued: “Most recently we’ve seen the adoption of real-time production for final pixels, and virtual production on a movie set, where you can have a hundred different devices and anybody can look through any camera and see a real-time composition of the humans in the scene with the green screen and the CG that has been pre-built for it, and it gets us back to this magical time in film production where the director could actually look through the camera and see everything. I think we’re going to see game engines completely revolutionize film and television production and ultimately help their creatives produce better results.”

The Chair of BAFTA’s Games Committee, Dr Jo Twist OBE, said: “We are delighted to honour Epic Games with a BAFTA Special Award. Their impact on the global games industry and its evolution has been extraordinary and we are pleased to be recognising that this evening. Epic Games have empowered and supported creativity in the industry for over 20 years and they continue to innovate on established industry practice and champion the creative community. BAFTA celebrates and promotes the very best in games and that’s what tonight is about.”

Past recipients of BAFTA Special Awards have included Nolan North, Brenda Romero, Amy Hennig and Markus “Notch” Persson. For more Epic Games-related information, visit the company’s website.