Unreal Tournament (2014 video game)
Unreal Tournament is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games. It is the ninth game in the "Unreal" franchise, the fifth game in the "Unreal Tournament" series, and the first entry to be released since 2007's "Unreal Tournament 3". The game utilizes Epic's Unreal Engine 4 and was released for free on Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux. The game was released as an alpha in 2014, but was never completed due to Epic Games' focus on "Fortnite Battle Royale." "Unreal Tournament"s development was crowdsourced and open to contribution  from anyone with Epic Games using forums for discussions and Twitch livestreams for updates. The source code of the game was published on GitHub. Development had ceased by July 2017 when the team transitioned over to "Fortnite", though a formal announcement of the end of development was not made until December 2018. The game remains available for free in its June 2017 configuration (version 0.1.12). Gameplay. Gameplay remained largely unchanged from past iterations of the "Unreal Tournament" series. So far, the confirmed gametypes are: Other gametypes expected to return were: Development. "Unreal Tournament" was first teased on May 2, 2014 , when Mark Rein, vice president and co-founder of Epic Games, tweeted about a possible reboot, saying that he loved it, resulting in a positive response from the gaming community, specifically the PC gaming demographic that largely grew up playing the previous games. Paul Meegan, vice president of product development at Epic, followed Rein's tweet with information about the future of Unreal Tournament. The game was announced by Epic in a Twitch livestream on May 8. During the livestream, senior programmer and project lead Steve Polge said that there had been demand for a reboot of the "Unreal Tournament  and that the release of the Unreal Engine 4, made this the ideal time to do so. The development of the game officially began on May 8, the same day of the announcement. Unreal Tournament" was developed using Unreal Engine 4 in the open in close collaboration between Epic Games and the community. Although an Unreal Engine 4 subscription is required to fully contribute (all the code is accessible in a GitHub repository), "Unreal Tournament" fans are still able to comment and share ideas on the company's forum. During a Twitch livestream held on July 24 the same year , art director Chris Perna showed off a fully rendered but unfinished level in the Unreal Engine editor and talked about the overall look he wanted. A video released five days later via "Unreal Tournament"'s YouTube channel, shows early footage of the game, with the development team playing the first round of Team Deathmatch. It is also taken up by discussions of what the development team is working on. This includes adding in almost all of the weapons and more complex levels. On August 13, 2014, a playable pre-alpha build was released. Originally, the build was only available to  UE4 subscribers but thanks to the way the game is being developed, an Unreal community member was able to compile Epic's prototypes and to release them to the public. According to the development community on the download page, it would be getting weekly updates. On September 5, Epic hosted an Unreal Tournament event, where several competitive players and enthusiasts from each generation of "Unreal Tournament" as well as some of the community contributors were invited to play the early prototype version of the game at Epic's headquarters in Cary, North Carolina. The event was meant for providing feedback  on the gameplay. As part of the announcement that Unreal Engine 4 would be free, a new build of the game was showcased during the 2015 Game Developers Conference, offering its first high-textured map called Outpost 23, which is a new version of the level originally revealed in the game's first-in-engine flythrough in July 2014, a new customized Unreal Editor and new characters. Two of the original composers of the 1999 "Unreal Tournament", Michiel van den Bos and Alexander Brandon, both expressed interest in returning to compose the soundtrack. The final patch for the game was  released on June 28, 2017. Proposed business model. While the game was never completed, Epic Games made a number of statements outlining their proposed business model for the title. It was intended to be released for free, reflecting the fact that it was in part created by a community of volunteers, without microtransactions or gameplay-affecting items. To pay for the game, Epic intended to create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists, and players can buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from this marketplace would be split between the content creator and Epic. This model is not dissimilar to  the Unreal Engine Marketplace that ultimately emerged in September 2014 for general Unreal Engine projects. When asked whether the decision to release the game for free was a reflection of a wider industry trend, Steve Polge told "Edge": "It's certainly where we are placing our bets and it is our focus at Epic. We like the model because it's fundamentally generous. It allows us to succeed by doing the right thing for the community, and then the value naturally comes back. That's a lot more attractive to us than the old build, ship and pray model". Modification . In November 2014, the popular "ChaosUT" mod was announced to return in "Unreal Tournament". "ChaosUT" was selected as one of three mods to be included on the "Game of the Year Edition" of the original "Unreal Tournament". The mod was officially cancelled in December 2018, after development of the base game ended.