Epic Games just hired former Battle.net head, as studio gears up for "the era of Unreal Engine 6"

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As Epic gears up for Unreal Engine 6, CEO Tim Sweeney has shared that ex-Battle.net Senior Vice President, Technology and Services, Martin Keely, will be stepping into the role of Epic Games Store and Epic Online services' new Vice President/General Manager.

The repost from Sweeney, which was shared on his X page on Monday, July 27, says that Epic is heading into "the era of Unreal Engine 6 and Team Open linking up to make everything work across platforms, stores, engines, and ecosystems!"

Sweeney's message is in relation to Keely's announcement of his new position. Heading up Battle.net's development at Blizzard for seven years, his move to Epic looks to mark an interesting time ahead.

Keely's own post mentions that he is "thrilled and honored" about the new role, and is "excited to get started with the team delivering new capabilities that elevate player, creator and developer experiences." He also states that he's "grateful for the opportunity to play a role in shaping an open and sustainable gaming ecosystem," likely referring to Sweeney's statement on one of UE6's aims during the State of Unreal from June 2026.

At the event, Sweeney harkened back to a speech of his from SIGGRAPH 2016, where he outlined a goal of "a potential future of gaming as an open system like the web is open, in which any developer can run a server, build a game, host their own content, and a user can go anywhere they want from place to place, bringing all of their stuff with them." A key part of Sweeney's opening remarks in the 2026 event were that Unreal Engine could "[tear] down the walls and barriers that exist between games to have a completely interoperable ecosystem."

Noting that Epic is "tantalizingly close now to fully realizing this idea of an open gaming ecosystem," whether this future will be realized yet remains to be seen. But, one thing is certainly clear: with its latest hire, it seems like it is certainly set on giving it the good old college try.