Epic Games today announced that it has created a new Seattle development studio that will focus on its Unreal Engine 4. The company has begun hiring developers to fill the studio, including programmers and support staff.

“The proximity to key partners, the density of world-class talent and all the factors that make Seattle an attractive place to live convinced us that it is the perfect locale for Epic’s West Coast operation,” said Michael Capps, Epic Games president. “We are looking to hire even more of the best engineers around to contribute to Unreal Engine 4, which we believe is set to change the way we all make games.”

Epic unveiled its Unreal Engine 4 at this year’s E3, and garnered tons of praise for it from the gaming press. And while Square Enix also demoed its Luminous Studio engine at E3 with a beautiful Final Fantasy-inspired trailer, Epic’s demonstration of Unreal Engine 4’s development tools shows why it is confident its new engine will be the framework for many next-generation games. Epic’s demo revealed that developers using the Unreal Engine 4 software will be able to customize the editor interface with dock-able, resizable toolbars and compile code on-the-fly, allowing for fast modification and iteration while testing a game.

Meanwhile, Epic isn’t ditching the Unreal Engine 3. The company demonstrated last week that its current-generation engine can work quite well on upcoming Windows 8 RT tablets.

A list of Seattle programming positions Epic is hiring for can be seen on Epic’s website.