Epic Games' Unreal Tournament reboot project is dead

mongeese

Posts: 643   +123
Big quote: When asked by Variety about the impact the new Epic Games store and Fortnite were having on older projects like Unreal Tournament, Epic CEO and founder Tim Sweeney tactfully said they were dead. “Unreal Tournament remains available in the store but isn’t actively being developed. We’ve recently worked with GOG on making classic Epic Games titles available and we’re planning to bring more of them to the store in their original glory.”

Unreal Tournament comprises a series of games that were born from a collaboration between Epic Games and Digital Extremes in 1999. A popular and beloved sci-fi multiplayer shooter, the game’s strong fanbase has seen its development continue for nearly 20 years. The ninth installment in the series was supposed to be a free version of the game, developed in collaboration with the community. The reboot was confusingly named just “Unreal Tournament” and now will never leave its pre-alpha stage, but will remain available for diehard fans to play and mod.

Many fans have been left disappointed, or even angry, but none were surprised. When Unreal Tournament was announced in 2014 it was only given a handful of developers and was marketed as a free ‘developer-community collaboration’ project. It received its last update in July last year.

Even if you haven’t played any Unreal Tournament games, you’ve more than likely felt their influence in many other shooters that came after it. Fortnite’s battle royale mode was conceived and developed by the Unreal Tournament team. Despite their original intentions of returning back to UT, they were kept too busy by the rapid success of Fortnite that they were never able to return to the classic title.

“There aren’t a lot of people to spare,” admitted Unreal Tournament community manager Stacey Conley. Though some have turned away from the title, many fans have reaffirmed their commitment to co-developing the title through extensive mods.

Without access to the unfinished base code, however, the game will always be unstable. “In ten years, we’ll look back at these tough times playing UT alpha and laugh… because we’ll still be playing UT alpha,” joked Reddit user Ahrzd.

It’s a shame to see Epic close the book on such a beloved title, but it’s still worth the free download. While it would’ve needed a large graphical overhaul, it’s hard not to wonder what might have happened if Epic Games had chosen to add the battle royale mode to Unreal Tournament, rather than Fortnite...

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Amen!

In the past this game represented achievements in computer graphics and gaming experience, and some violence. But in today's market it wouldn't make any difference.

Soon we are going to see Doom Eternal with ray tracing. Nothing beats it in that genre.
 
Sign of the times, the world seems to have moved on.

I was really rooting for this reboot, but to be totally honest it wasn't really coming together - something just felt off...
 
Between this, Paragon and even Fortnite's single-player mode, Fortnite's battle royale mode is a goddamn vampire, LOL.
 
I wouldn't mind seeing UNREAL being redone on new technology, and coming packaged with a redone Unreal Tournament.

Those games were far more fun and interesting than all the trash coming out now. Everything is basically just Battle Royale now.
I loved Unreal as well especially the Dark map multiplayer map on Unreal that was really dark like no map I've seen today in modern map even altering gamma didn't work flares and flashlights/Torches did but on gave you away lol loved that map. sigh
 
Wasn't Unreal supposed to be open source? Can't work be continued by the community?
 
Some garbage game (Fortnite) that was made like 6 yrs ago, was dead. A BR mode that was taken from another game (Pubg), has caused Epic to just forget about a classic game and redo it. If anything youd think Fortnites success would make them still want to make or now that they have the means to make a great remake, instead they say oh its dead like they could careless.
Sad really, they could have really did something with the Unreal franchise, you know the one that made them what they are today.
Imo Epics only been good for Unreal n Gears of War games. Fortnite is a dead game with a free BR mode that will fade away like most do. It wont even last another year.
GoW 5 will be and is a much better game. Will be interesting if it adds a BR mode.
 
UT could been a contenter for proper esports contender to games such as CSGO but instead they've neglected it. Even CSGO has incorporated their version of BR and it looks fun, will definitely try it out one night this week.
 
"“There aren’t a lot of people to spare,” admitted Unreal Tournament community manager Stacey Conley."

With the sheer amount of money being raked in by Fortnite you'd think they can hire a new team to develop UT... Hell they can buy out another company at this point in time and have them make UT. This seems like a money going to their heads problem, why continue to develop a game that was suppose to be free when they can keep making BS skins and dances for a game which makes them a huge sum of profit for minimal effort invested... Well I guess you can't really blame them, just be disappointed really.
 
This is such a hoot. UT was a hell of a game/series. Now they have PissPoorNite and everyone is losing their heads with the mindless and skill less play that it provides. FortNite is like the Psy of gaming. A blight upon the industry and will hopefully see its demise if all goes well next month. If not it will come because once again toddler toys are popular for only so long.
 
"Fortnite crushed the latest Unreal Tournament in its wake" - ca. 15 years ago, when I started playing PC games, I'd never thought I will read a heading like this.
 
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