The Future of Unreal Tournament Begins Today

[dlevere]

By Steve Polge

Work on the future of Unreal Tournament begins today, and we’re happy to announce that we’re going to do this together, with you. We know that fans of the game are as passionate about Unreal Tournament as we are. We know that you have great ideas and strong opinions about where the game should go and what it should be. So let’s do something radical and make this game together, in the open, and for all of us.

Here’s the plan:

[*]We’ve created a small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today.
[*]From the very first line of code, the very first art created and design decision made, development will happen in the open, as a collaboration between Epic, UT fans and UE4 developers. We’ll be using forums for discussion, and Twitch streams for regular updates.
[*]If you are a fan and you want to participate, create a free account and join the forum discussion.
[*]All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub.
[*]The game will be true to its roots as a competitive FPS.
[*]Development will be focused on Windows, Mac and Linux.

So what’s the catch?

[*]It will take many months until the game is playable by gamers. This is real development from scratch.
[*]When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free.
[*]We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic. That’s how we plan to pay for the game.

A lot of this is brand new for Epic, and we don’t yet have everything figured out. Things will probably definitely go wrong from time to time, and when they do, we’ll have to work through them together. There will be a lot of tough decisions to make, and not every feature will make it into the game. But if you’re a fan of Unreal Tournament, a UE4 developer, or a future modder – or if you just want to learn how we make games – we hope you’ll join us. It’s going to be fun.

Want to get involved?

[*]Want more detail on the project? Read our Wiki.
[*]Want to participate & give feedback? Check out the forums, and sign up for a free account here to join Unreal Engine 4 community.
[*]Just interested in getting updates? Subscribe to our newsletter here.
[*]In case you want to check out the classic Unreal Tournament games, you can get them for 50% off right now!

Follow us at /UnrealEngine on Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, Instagram and Google+.

[dlevere]

The First Unreal Tournament 2014 Play Session Ever

By Nathan Grayson

If you were at all doubting Epic’s plan to resurrect Unreal Tournament as an openly developed, entirely free (user-driven mod/map marketplace aside) enterprise, doubt no more. There’s a game now, and it has guns and big, gray texture-less cubes and everything else all videogames have. You can see it in sorta-action below.



Those are apparently clips from the first Unreal Tournament 2014 match ever. It’s, um, barely even a game yet, but what do you expect from something that’s been in active development for under a month? So there you go. Unreal Tournament 2014 will have a shock rifle. Hurrah.

For real, though, it’s good to see Epic following through on its promise of showing super early rough draft stuff to the community. Granted, this was still an edited video – not, say, a live stream of development or anything like that – but it’s something. It’s a decent starting point, at least. Hopefully we’ll see more as time goes on, presumably when there’s something for fans to be involved with.

Until then, I guess we’ll just have to be patient. Need some reading material to keep you company? Perhaps my Unreal Tournament 2014 interview with Epic will suffice.

[dlevere]

This is how the new Unreal Tournament might look

Epic shares "work in progress" in-engine footage.

By Tom Phillips

Unreal Tournament developer Epic has shown off a new in-engine glimpse at how the upcoming game may look.

Speaking last night during a community livestream, art director Chris Perna showed a brief flythrough of a level that had been built in Unreal Engine 4.



Classic sci-fi films such as the original Alien and space western Outland were discussed as influences.

"The overall look is clean, it will allow characters to pop off the background," Perna explained. "It's not the look for the whole game, but I hope the quality of this will pick up through the whole game.

"To me, Unreal and the entire franchise has been a Tim Burton, Batman caricature of itself. Where I'd like to go with the new franchise is more of a Chris Nolan, kind of Batman Begins... Just something a little more polished, a little more realism. But without going over the top and doing what we did with Gears and UT3, making everything dark and grungy."

The project is being developed in close association with the franchise's fans, although it's unclear when the game will be released. Epic has said it hopes to have something playable later this year.