Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley had recently spoken about potential Epic Games Store exclusivity for one of their games as something unlikely to happen. However, at E3 2019 the British software house announced that Zombie Army 4: Dead War would indeed be an Epic Games Store exclusive.

　　In an interview with PC Gamer posted last week, the Rebellion CEO talked about the sudden shift in policy.

　　On PC it'll be a 12-month exclusive. They offered us a ton more support than we were going to be able to give the game ourselves in terms of marketing, so it's been a very good experience. It comes with some downsides. Some people don't like what Epic is doing, and I understand why, but it's been very good for the project. It's been very good for us.

　　Kingsley also appeared to share the perspective mentioned by Epic's Tim Sweeney, who stated exclusives coming to the Epic Games Store are a necessity to meaningfully combat the current Steam monopoly. Additionally, the Rebellion CEO said upsetting a few people isn't all bad as it inevitably provides extra attention.

　　They're great guys. Steam are great as well. And I think that Epic, from their perspective, they've got to fight against someone who's incredibly dominant in the market space. One of the ways they can do that is by offering something exclusive.

　　It makes sense from their perspective, and it upsets a few people. And maybe upsetting a few people isn't necessarily bad, because it gets you attention as well. And one of the challenges for us making games, and a challenge for any indie studio, anybody that doesn't have a huge amount of money to spend on marketing, is discovery. How do you get people to even know your great game exists? Before they can buy it, they've got to encounter it. If they encounter it, they [might] like it. If they haven't encountered it, they don't know whether they like it or not. So discovery is an interesting thing, and that's exactly the same for Epic. [They've got to] work super hard to build up that market share to get to the point where they're competitive. So I think they're being very smart in what they're doing.

　　Zombie Army 4: Dead War is coming out in early 2020. Check out the official E3 2019 gameplay video below.