Unreal Tournament to be crafted with the players, will be free, and moddable

By Stephany Nunneley

Epic Games has announced development on Unreal Tournament has started and the game will be free, moddable, and developed in concert with the players.

“We’re happy to announce that we’re going to do this together, with you,” said senior programmer Steve Polge. “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.”

Epic outlined the plans for URT in the press release. Those plans are as follows:

• 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.

Epic said it will take “many months until the game is playable by gamers,” as the development is starting from scratch. Once playable it will be free, not free to play. Just free in the true sense of the word.

“We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content,” Polge added.”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.

“We hope you’ll join us. It’s going to be fun.”

To get involved, sign up for a free account here to join Unreal Engine 4 community.