Former Unreal Engine evangelist Sjoerd De Jong departs Epic Games

Sjoerd De Jong, an early Unreal Engine expert who joined Epic Games full-time in 2014, has left the company. He served as the engine's lead evangelist and most recently as senior director on an unannounced project. "After 27 years of Unreal Engine, and 12 years at Epic Games and Unreal Engine I have decided to move on.

Last week was my last week at Epic," he wrote on LinkedIn. De Jong's involvement with Unreal began at 15, modding the original 1998 shooter. Epic directly approached him to work on Unreal Tournament 2004, where he designed maps including DM-Rankin and ONS-Torlan; DM-Rankin became the most-played UT2004 map, per server stats on the Unreal wiki.

He has worked at a variety of studios over the years, including Starbreeze and his own indie company, Teotl Studios, and contributed to titles such as Killzone and The Ball. Unreal Engine long remained his specialty, which led Epic to give him the lead evangelist title when it hired him in 2014.

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