Epic has admitted to neglecting its best-selling Unreal franchise in recent years.

President Mike Capps told IndustryGamers that its decision in recent years to focus on the Gears of War series and new IPs had left its flagship FPS brand in the shade.

"It's been a long time since we shipped an Unreal game, and it's an awfully loved franchise that we hold pretty dear here. We haven't been giving it the attention it deserves because we've been focusing on Gears of War and we're still a relatively small company.

"At some point you wonder why we don't rename the engine the Gears Engine or something," he joked.

Though he stopped short of confirming work on a new entry in the series was underway, he did add that a sequel would probably make Epic's bank manager happy.

"We've been sort of focused on making new properties, which you've seen with Shadow Complex, Bulletstorm and Infinity Blade, but sometimes I think just as a businessman that maybe we should be spending some more time with our existing franchises."

The last outing for the IP was Unreal Tournament III on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 back in 2007, which won an 8/10 from Eurogamer's Kristan Reed.