Death of a Game: Unreal Tournament

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4:42 - Timeline begins
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#DOAG . Death of a Game is a series dedicated to uncovering the mysteries surrounding the death of a game or company. nerdSlayer defines the term "death" in the context of the show as either... 1. Literally dead. 2. Had a mass exodus of players and never recovered (expectations etc). 3. The company ceased to exist. We follow a timeline of events, to uncover clues concerning why a game or company doesn't do well, and attempt to put it all together at the end for a deduction explaining how or why the game failed based on the evidence gathered.
Sources:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_...)
www.theverge.com/2022/12/14/2...
www.shacknews.com/article/133....
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreal_...
www.gamespot.com/articles/che...
www.gamespot.com/articles/ami...
www.pcgamer.com/fortnite-batt...
www.theverge.com/2023/3/14/23...
unreal.fandom.com/wiki/Unreal...
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[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/SQVN6y and get a special starter pack with an Epic champion ⚡Tallia⚡ Click here📱egghunt.plarium.com/ to participate in the AR EggHunt Event. Get your chance to grab Legendary RAID Champion or Amazon Gift Cards with a total value of $20K for FREЕ💰🎁. Thank you to Raid Shadow Legends for sponsoring this video.

[@Akuretaki_Nikolay]

AINTNOWAY BigBrother peepoPog

[@joshuataylor7443]

Can you do deathgarden next?

[@chost-059]

No

[@miikal5951]

Hey, I’m not sure if this is the place to put requests, but can you do a video on Altus Reactor? The game lasted 4 years before it went down, but I’ve never fully figured out what went wrong. I only have 2 potential reasons: a general lack of marketing, and the reveal trailer making people compare the game to Overwatch when it really played more like XCOM. I can’t help but feel there’s more to the story, and you sound like the best guy to figure it out.

[@DanDycedaro]

Ew.

[@Ragnarok311]

I still can't believe that they actually removed this game from legal storefronts. It's absolutely baffling.

[@joshallen128]

I know epic didn't remove the other games like jazz jackrabbit which is odd I thought for sure they would put them on egs

[@Mikistly]

yeah that was a stupid move.. why do so? you could leave them be so we could buy it.. dammit..

[@BastyTHz]

they just set release date of UT3X few months ago

[@Mikistly]

@@BastyTHz i want to play UT2004 and i was broke so i always played it pirated, and when i finally have surplus money for games this bastards took it off from the store.., hope the UT3x is better or i am going to be pissed..

[@ddjsoyenby]

agreed.

[@mikeg5039]

How ironic would it be if you eventually had to do a death of a game: raid shadow legends

[@gzuskreist1021]

We can only dream.....

[@Marinealver]

give it time, hopefully this channel will still be around.

[@NiiRubra]

I'm actually seriously expecting that now, not because I think Raid is dying (I simply don't know), but because that would be ironic and life is made out of such little ironies.

[@mikeg5039]

@@NiiRubra this death of a game sponsored by raid shadow legends….oooohhhh oh no

[@bunnybreaker]

I hope he collects the sponsorship bucks right up until the day of that episode. Take that cash, we get it, you gotta buy bread.

[@twisted_coconut4093]

As a kid who picked up Unreal Tournament 2004 in Circuit City back in the day this hurts my soul. Series used to be a staple of any PC gamer’s arsenal now its just a passing memory nowadays.

[@larkohiya]

Word

[@stevenbruck3574]

I can feel that comment

[@joshallen128]

And she got my copy from compusa

[@azuredream23]

Oof I felt my back crack when you said Circuit City!

[@patryksg]

Same as Quake. Really sad. At least UT never had a bad entry, though.

[@shiniesglitters5424]

This isn't death of a game, this is Murder of a game.

[@generalcjg]

You mean murder of an entire legendary franchise.

[@termitreter6545]

And its so unnecesasry. I didnt expect UT4 to have much potential back in 2018, but in retrospect it really couldve been something big. Halo still got a huge playerbase, and with 343 struggling UT couldve stepped in. The colorful scifi art style, the team, movement and objective focus, the amazing capture the flag modes, and evil vehicles of UT2004... UT is so close to Halo, how can it not have potential? Even Doom 2016 is closer to Halo/UT/Quake than Doom 2. Heck, anyone remembers UT2004s last man standing mode? You spawn into a map with bad gear, need to find weapons+gear ASAP, and fight to survive, with limited life. Its fricking Battle Royale, right there.

[@ryanlafferty5815]

to make way for the most poisonous multiplayer game ever.....fort ...fking....nite@@generalcjg

[@ryanlafferty5815]

UT4 felt great to play, it's an old school game for old school players, and created mostly by the community in the end.....fk epic games......you can't have it crossplay because bringing aim assist to a game like this would be a crime , and putting a new player against someone like me is a joke.....unfortunately no modern FPS will ever allow a skill gap like that to develop any more....games are now enabling aimbot via controller aim assist , this is why quake and UT, for me will always be the pinnacle of skill in FPS games

[@ryanlafferty5815]

counterstrike as well has to be mentioned

[@Wofaze]

The way Epic treated this game was unreal.

[@ArjunTheRageGuy]

That wasn't every Epic (games) of theirs when they did that

[@zsideswapper6718]

It is truely Unreal how they killed it.

[@AlphaEnt2]

One minor detail: The video said unreal 1 was a singleplayer only title but that's not entirely true. Unreal 1 has multiplayer support and some gamemodes as well (deathmatch, king of the hill and the oddly curious darkmatch, where you played on a completely dark level with flashlights and flares) Not only that, but unreal 1 had very good bots at the time, which is also, the reason the ai for singleplayer monsters was so good at the time.

[@DreddMeister]

One of the first games to offer botmatch included.

[@therealshug]

I'm a die-hard quake fan but Unreal was always a better game. Quake 3 was a joke on release until the OSP mod came out and fixed all its glaring issues, and vanilla Q3 was never used for tournaments again afaik lol. Unreal and UT 99, out the box on day 1, were far superior products. So much more polish. The bots are still hard/intelligent even today, while Quake bots are an absolute joke (unless you've got the ones that come with CPMA, maybe they come with OSP, I always heard that they were ported over from QuakeWorld bots or something). I spent a lot of my childhood playing offline bot matches (we didn't have dial-up yet) in Unreal, before I had UT 99. Sucks to see Epic completely trash their roots and pay so little respect to what got them where they are today. My love of CTF was born in UT 99 and it's never gone away

[@termitreter6545]

Yeh, Unreal 1 actually had really great maps too. Some of them were so good they got ported to UT2004 and UT3, like the legendary Deck 16 came from the original. And the AI was ofc kinda spectacular for the time. And even today... UT wouldve been the perfect game to benefit from HALOs struggles under 343, and the success of games like Doom 2016. As the video says, even Fortnite has some DNA from Unreal, and the battle royale mode is basically just "Last Man Standing" on a big map with only 1 life.

[@Catonator]

Unreal Tournament started out as an expansion pack to Unreal 1's multiplayer, called the Unreal Botpack, because the multiplayer side was infamously anemic (just a few maps and only really one popular gamemode). Epic realized that the size of the expansion could make it stand on its own easily, and spun it off into its own game, and the rest is history.

[@GeertGoossens]

yeah like probably 10 years later me and a buddy re-played unreal in Co-op mode, there were even patches to improve graphics libraries to support bigger screen sizes and better graphics cards at that time... this was basically 1 of the games that got us both into gaming, unreal tournament mostly played during my college years...

[@ChoyaBird]

It didn't have to end this way... My childhood fave didn't have to be on Death of a Game...

[@satanamogila9251]

But you have FORTNITE now!

[@josephpaine9195]

Unreal tournament was so sick in its time. Q3A was just better, faster, more precise. I would play unreal today for novelty. I STILL play Q3A every so often because it's effing amazing and better than modern fps games

[@qu1253]

Nobody wants to play arena FPS anymore, sadly. Every attempt to make a new one in the last 10 years has fallen flat on its face. Quake Champions was the genre's best shot at making a comeback and it still failed. Even Halo is struggling to keep players these days.

[@ninochaosdrache3189]

Tbf Halo has much more dire problems than being an arena shooter.

[@haruhirogrimgar6047]

​@@ninochaosdrache3189 Well the Halo + Portal game also crashed and burned in player count.

[@David.Marquez]

Facing worlds is still the most iconic FPS location along with de_dust

[@koyooko5160]

Facing Worlds, de_dust2, Blood Gulch all gave me memories i still remember vividly to this day

[@termitreter6545]

Lets not forget Deck 17, legendary map :D

[@theunrealtournamentchannel]

I dabbled with ctf, but I have to say the UT4 version of of Face looks spectacular.

[@JF1LMS]

QDM6 too

[@Simte]

There was nothing like Tournament for me in 1999, not even Quake or CS later in time. The level design, the pace, the power ups, but most of all, the community.

[@haloindecloudsergens7912]

sorry never experienced it, I was an Unreal Tournament 2004 gamer and for me this was the ultimate game it al started for me in 2005 with Ut2k4

[@2000_bms]

This is the saddest video released on this channel. I'm still mad years later that UT4's development was cancelled because Fortnite took off and Epic dropped everything else to dump all resources towards it. They'll never get a cent from me or convince me to use their Epic launcher because of UT4's cancellation.

[@casualalcoholic6671]

humanity deserves another UT before its demise. Fuck Fortnite

[@leadpaintchips9461]

TBH Epic's treatment of _everything_ not Fortnite BR was atrocious, and their handling of their storefront is subpar to say the least.

[@GrimmHooke]

I've never gotten over how Fortnite's original game, Save the World, got shafted when the BR took off. Crushing to see this happened to UT, too. :(

[@leadpaintchips9461]

@@GrimmHooke It happened to _everything_ else Epic was working on up until that point.

[@richardfan7157]

Don't forget Paragon too. A MOBA with great potential killed off too soon.

[@TheLordDhaos]

Unreal Tournament 2004. A game that made my childhood, and has led to so many LAN parties throughout high school and college. Never forget instagib CTF, always a blast to play.

[@crusher1980]

Vehicle CTF aswell.

[@fuzzybabyducks7878]

Low gravity instability bombing run

[@zsideswapper6718]

Instagib FFA with 50+ bots

[@sgtflashback5442]

I scored my first online frag on UT99, I had no idea what I was doing. I was on 800 ping, wondering how everything was so delayed. I saw an opponent fly across the map and guessed where he would be in a second and shot my shockrifle there. I jumped up and down "I got one, I got one!!" It made my day.

[@TevyaSmolka]

It’s sad to see unreal tournament being dead and buried because this franchise was really awesome and tons of fun.

[@Gekomania]

The music still give me chills. The community was on fire, there were so much custom content - not even speaking of 2003/04. There was so much love for the game and the world. It will never fade in my heart.

[@AdrX003]

Indeed. sometimes it could happen even by spelling the name. its "unreal", heheh

[@Vohicular]

My 80 year old father still plays UT 99. Not saying it's not dead, but man that game still holds up. IT was the first PC game I got to play so this video has a sting in my heart.

[@therealshug]

dude your dad is way cooler than mine. In his 50's and he only plays ARMA now, claims he "doesn't have the reflexes" to play half life 1 dm, quake, ut, etc...

[@MR-vj8dn]

Cool! Me and my girlfriend are about to set up a UT99 server to play with others - as we did back in the days.

[@6StimuL84]

59 and still play with my grandson...One of the best FpS.....

[@HeisenbergFam]

So glad to see people still knowing about Unreal Tournament a 1998 classic, its wild how it eventually died out

[@hegyak]

Wasn't it 1999? Unreal was 1998.

[@sulphurous2656]

It seems there's been a lot of coverage going on for Unreal in recent months since the delisting.

[@lhb82]

@@hegyak Yes, that's why people also call it "UT99"

[@JohnK004]

Aren't there still plenty of people playing it online still? so cannot be called dead yet.

[@dissraps]

Yea its crazy that 20 year old games stop being popular...

[@InfernalMonsoon]

What makes this tale more spiteful towards Epic's community is the removal of all the other games. They had to pay people to go into their store accounts and actively request the store owners to remove their games, which isn't always an instant removal process as it can sometimes take time to verify with security checks in the event of a potential hack, and in the business world time is money. And by spending that money to remove their games they lose out on all potential future sales, meaning they quite literally threw out the most sensible options and did the most un-business thing ever purely to spite the Unreal community and to literally deface and disrespect Epic's legacy and the heritage of the Unreal engine purely to put every egg in that single Fortnite basket. I sincerely hope that basket breaks.

[@ShahbazBokhari]

...it's like bumping into an old friend who once was the very soul of the room, who has now just... faded away.

[@thomasdye7503]

Death of a game? More like death of my childhood

[@chemergency]

I really hate that Epic just killed Unreal instead of releasing the source code to UE1 like id's done with their older engines or even just licensing the older games to Nightdive for a remaster like they did for Quake 1.

[@mrcyberpunk]

100% agree, TimSweeny is a lying prick. He has said multiple times he wanted to release the Source Code but has done nothing about it since that forum post. That source code would be incredibly useful, especially for us in the Deus Ex community.

[@KayX291]

They "kinda" did. They gave the source code to trusted members of OldUnreal in order to continue making patches for both Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament '99

[@rudorlf3441]

@@KayX291 Interesting. Epic didn't distribute the source code publicly because of company distrust? Or they were worried that parts of the code have the potential to directly affect their superseding engines? (My own conspiracy theory anyway)

[@KayX291]

@@rudorlf3441 From what i know when it comes to publishing source codes to the public, it must be checked if there won't be any licensing problems. For example the Doom source code we've received is actually from a Linux version, it was chosen so they won't have any licensing issue related to DMX Sound library which was used in the original DOS game.

[@akaroth7542]

Reminder: you can find the games archived, including 4 and the community has its own master servers set up! You can still play online. Each game still has a small community. You can get on a few full servers

[@notrecyborg5492]

where? How do you get to the servers? The latest UT won't even load now

[@abramjessiah]

​@@notrecyborg5492discord

[@Calypt0]

@@notrecyborg5492 google openspy

[@chocolate-eclair1234]

SoL is a great dm one

[@SirCaco]

I spent a month back in my home town in 2018 and got together with some of my childhood friends. For old times' sake we decided to set up a LAN party on a couple occasions and we played Counter-Strike 1.6 and Unreal Tournament '99. Gotta tell ya, I know being with your childhood friends is a big boon but the games themselves were still fun as hell.

[@radicalcentrist4990]

Epic Games have been the villains ever since they started bribing other developers for Epic Store exclusivity. And also, who the hell just erases from existence the one game series that made them? The Unreal series is a PC gaming relic, how in the hell can you just erase it like that? Why?

[@GFClocked]

From 1999 to the day i die unreal is going to have a special place in my heart. Every time i hear the ost i get shivers. This is my favorite game of my childhood, it is what shifted me to gaming essentially. Please resurrect one day, i have yet to give up on waiting.

[@NiiRubra]

1:20 I like the editing here, the visual of the Necris character doing a slit-throat gesture as you talk about the project dying. 8:48 I think it's called Unreal Tournament 3 because Unreal Tournament *2*003 and *2*004 are basically UT2, when you put them together. 11:16 Aw, I wish you talked about Unreal Championship 2, which was a rather standout console exclusive UT game. For me personally I would consider _that_ the spiritual sequel to UT2004, rather than UT3, which was its own thing as you said. You should check it out if you haven't looked into it before, it has some pretty cool things. 16:00 I agree with you, UT is a team game, be it CTF or TDM, Onslaught/Warfare or VCTF, Bombing Run, Domination and so on. I guess they went with deathmatch because it is the most core basic thing that allowed them to perfect the movement and feel of the game. In the end I don't resent Fortnite, further development of Fortnite consuming the UT team just feels natural. I'm only 32 but I'm a bit of a "shooter boomer" I guess, and I recognize that UT is something from a past age, it feels old despite not being _that_ long ago, and it is simply not the sort of thing that people are into nowadays, it's not the aforementioned Fortnite, or Overwatch or Tarky, the world moved on, it makes sense that the game died because of that fact, I am not surprised. I suppose that means that UT4 was exactly this: a half-hearted attempt at reviving something from the past, and they did a hell of a good job with what they had, it has the essence of a fully furnished UT hit in there, but clearly the corporate enthusiasm was not behind it to make UT4 the game that UT and UT2004 were. I just wish they did not delist the original games for all of the folks who may want to try them out at some point, those people _exist._ At the very least do the thing they keep doing and put them up for sale in their platform, make it available _somewhere,_ you know? As it is right now, if someone wants to give the classic UT games a try, they basically have to pirate it, either that or play into the whims of scalpers selling keys dubiously online (yeah... just pirate it tbh). Thanks for the retrospective, nerdSlayer, see you in Torlan.

[@rudorlf3441]

Speaking of which, the first Unreal Championship deserves a mention too. ...If only for it having a hand on kickstarting the trend of DLCs and post-launch patches/updates on consoles, for better or for worse. At least from what I learned from TVTropes. (Maybe Halo was in it too back then, but I'm not aware of the Xbox history back then) Apparently even Unreal had suffered from sequel troubled production between UT99 and UT2003, not unlike Valve's HL2 period. And according to Civvie, Epic screwed over other Unreal games by third-party developers when it's busy with UT2003. (Nobody knows why)

[@MichaelPate-michaelkpate]

UT2004 - one of my all-time favorite games. I actually played some this weekend.

[@NotMeButAnother]

Such a good game, and great mods too!

[@MichaelPate-michaelkpate]

@@NotMeButAnother I had some many custom maps back in the day - I need to go see if I can find some of them and get them installed.

[@NotMeButAnother]

@@MichaelPate-michaelkpate My UT2004 folder had over 40 GB - doesn't sound like much these days but it was huge for the time.

[@MichaelPate-michaelkpate]

@@NotMeButAnother My first computer was a Commodore Vic-20. My first PC in 1992 had a 40MB hard drive. 40GB sounds like a lot to me still (even though my current PC has two 1GB SSDs.)

[@BloodyCaesar]

@@MichaelPate-michaelkpate Definitely a lot. I wouldn't dare to install a fancy Solitaire game on a 1GB SSD!

[@nigralurker]

I think Tim Sweeney always felt that Unreal wasn't truly and solely an Epic creation with the exception of UC2 and UT3. And that's true, Digital Extremes (creators of Warframe) was the co-developer and played a significant role on creating what made Unreal memorable. And this could easily be one of the major reasons why Tim shunned the entire franchise and decided to only give UT3 another shot at life. This still angers me, but alas it's been almost 20 years since Unreal as a franchise use to be a powerhouse. Also, Unreal 2 sucked, it was no worthy successor to Unreal 1, and was created by Legend Entertainment.

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Really good point/theory

[@4T3hM4kr0n]

Unreal II had some pretty interesting mechanics and characters and the guns were cool. Was still a bit random but enjoyable enough by itself.

[@zoricgames]

Ah, this one is going to hurt.

[@triledink]

UT99 will always be one of the best fps arena games ever made. I played alot of Quake 3 and UT99 back in the day and I could easily say that I played UT way more, all the weapons, maps and that soundtrack is legendary.

[@MH-ls8mg]

I havnt touched a UT game in years and yet this still somewhat makes me sad. Thousands of hours on UT99 and UT2k4, some friendships that have endured decades... Damn.

[@shanecoffing]

Man. I remember playing so much of this game back in the day. This used to be the smoothest quickest gunplay around. Too bad this series died, as no games feel quite like it.

[@joshallen128]

The music to unreal tournament was what got me into drums and bass and jungle and all that stuff thanks to its classic tracker music and the authors who who did it

[@ascargray]

This one hit hard. I've grown up with UT99, UTk4, Q3A, Cs1.6, CSS and Starcraft / WC3. I've never had a problem with the success of Fortnite. Its just a game for a different audience. But to completely neglect the what made epic big in the first place is stupid but its their decision. At least we could buy the old tittles and play them from time to time right ... RIGHT!? But NOPE today I've learned that the delisted THE WHOLE collections from GOG. At this point I am not even mad or devastated anymore -- shockingly right? I am just thankful, that there are enough Indie and AA studios out there that are producing quality games without strings attached.

[@Darkpsy97]

Unreal Tournament 3 was my favorite shooter as a kid. Amazing Games.

[@joshallen128]

That is coming back to steam Gog and I think epic salon store I think it'll be titled unreal tournament x

[@BastyTHz]

UT3X was planned to release this year few months before epic kill all the title

[@Echoplex25]

People always forget you can mod it like crazy, even on consoles amazingly enough. I remember that RE4 zombie clone mod that came out that worked well on PS3

[@FrothingManiac]

I've always loved UT3. For what the game lacks in content, it makes up for it by being incredibly creative and polished. There are some seriously creative vehicles, maps and gadgets within that game. I also love how the base gameplay feels - everything feels so solid and meaty and there's something about a point-blank flak cannon shot that's so satisfying. It's definitely a tad slower paced than the rest of the games, but I actually prefer the player physics in UT3 to UT2004 which are a little too light and flighty for me. There's definitely alot of tweaks they could have made in a '2004' style revamp to really make the game perfect, but alas this never came to be, so the game has a reputation similar to 2003.

[@ericleyba3157]

UT3 was the first game I got for PS3 and honestly it was my favorite game to play on PS3.

[@Darklordiban7]

What made UT2004 special to me was the crazy amount of servers running custom maps and mods. The one that stuck out to me the most was Rosanne Bums. Their Vehicle CTF server allowed for you to level up and choose from traits such as ammo regen, weapon packs on spawn, immunity to self damage, and other gameplay altering choices.

[@Sevensliders]

Unreal Tournament '99 for me is one of the best games of all time in terms of pure, adrenaline soaked gameplay and fun factor. It also introduced me to drum and bass to which I am very much a regular listener (the soundtrack I *still* play on occasion). 2004 peaks it. Rest in peace, UT. Thank you for the fond memories.

[@Deioth]

I LOVED all the mod community voice packs. I commonly used Jim Carey movie lines as my voice pack but would give a bunch of others to bots when playing offline. If I or my team won, I'd start dancing and everyone would hear, "My name is Cuban Pete! I'm the king of the Rumba Beat! When I shake my maracas they go chick-chicky-boom chick-chicky-boom!" And then getting fragged and hearing Dr Weird screaming "MY BANANA!!!" always made the death great.

[@gotadrop]

this game was my introduction to the fps genre . so sad it ended this way

[@Shyrou00]

Damn, I love both Quake and UT but UT has been one of my most played games of all time alongside with friends, we used to joke and imitate the radio commands because of how much we love the game, not even too long ago we hosted some lan parties to play again and now watching Epic kill one of its most important franchises it's just baffling, I have nothing against Fortnite but it sure as hell changed Epic's POV completely after becoming a success

[@bigbysnake8647]

I always preffered UT'99 gunplay over every other shooter to this day. It was raw, sharp and unapologetic. And the industrial vibe gave something unique. I think they should do another one with story mode focused on this blood sport and personal drama set in dystopian world. It should be dumb, loud, but wholesome and charismatic AF. They had the blueprints under their noses.

[@playerchef]

I can still remember when my brother introduce me to ut99 at the age of 6. One word "Different", not only i gave that game almost 18 years of my life, i also played the ps2 version and had a mental breakdown. Unreal tournament was and still is my reason to play games

[@varyagace]

I ended up picking up UT'99 and 2k4 when I saw the announcement they would be delisted. What have I been missing all those years, these games are excellent, even with being this old. I am glad they have active and dedicated playerbases that still keep them playable online and populated. Now, the problem being, is that Epic leadership clearly never wanted UT to succeed again, and I'm sure UT4 only got started because their most veteran developers insisted on making one. So they allowed them the bare minimum, and gave them promises of letting the community help with the rest. After all, the previous games initiated many a modder turned game developer into the industry, and the passion is there. But what wasn't there was the support, and when Fortnite made it big, the little that was left was pulled away forever. I still will never understand why they felt the need to delist all of the games and erase their own legacy like that. It's almost criminal. Anyway some of those things you mention as problems in the video, like single player modes, never even got a chance to be developed for this game. They just straight up weren't given the resources to make them with.

[@NiiRubra]

Make sure to check out the mutator archives that are kept by fans out there, lots of amazing maps and mods for these games!

[@notrecyborg5492]

How can I get 2004 and still play it online?

[@varyagace]

@@notrecyborg5492 I bought it off GoG on the last day they had it, and asked them for a unique key via support. I guess now your only option is piracy, but that shouldn't be too hard to find.

[@tiredgamer9261]

I always wondered what happened to this game. Because it was one of the only FPS's I enjoyed and that could keep my attention. I played Unreal torunament 1999-2000 version. Hearing that "Mooooonster K,ll" from getting so many headshots on the dualing towers map was so satisfying. And trying to get the Battle Cow Character in my game. It was fun and fast paced unlike how cod (old and new) or valorant feels today.

[@OriginalMokthol]

My brother introduced me to UT 2003, played it for years. When UT3 came out, I jumped in right away. I had no idea there was ever a UT4. It's unfortunate that the franchise kinda just faded out.

[@Siranoxz]

The fact that Unreal Tournament is no more really breaks my heart. That is why i hope CliffyB manage to get LawBreakers back into the market if he somehow figures it out.

[@AcidYoru]

You can sail the seven seas

[@nekospaw]

UT3 was the first time I really built a rig from the ground up in preperation, if that doesn't tell you how much impact unreal had then I don't know what does :D

[@akaimizu1]

I remember Unreal 1 taking a seemingly long time to create. In fact, I remember the years and years of delays of it since it was first announced. It was like whenever another potential competitor for the FPS, came out and hit another visual milestone, Unreal would not so coincidentally go back to the kitchen and cook some more. They really wanted Unreal to look comparatively the best when it released, so it took a number of *updates* until they were confident they could release the thing and wow people with visuals beyond the competition. As for what loved the most about Unreal Tournament. Mutators. For me, That was the game changer. Because the way many maps were designed, a lot of mutator settings could completely change the movement lanes of the maps. Quality stuff.

[@Moriarty1453]

This one really hurts. When i was a kid/teenager a friendo of mine lend me a pirated disc with Ut99 and it was a blast. That time i only had a potato pc with no internet conection, and i spent literaly years playing ut99 (and specially ut2004) offline, only against the bots, and it was my first true pc gaming experience. The modding comunity was incredible, i used to spent my very little money in Internet cafés downloading mod content created by the comunity, and with a USB bring it back to my home pc. I spent countles nights installing and modifiying mods, maps and skins, experimenting with the files, merging mods, editing skins, etc. Over time, i moved to other games, but Ut99 and ut2004 were a very important part of my teenage years, and i have very fond memories of that time of my gaming life.

[@nineballseraph6986]

Its really sad and makes me angry that all classic Unreal & Unreal Tournament games are unlisted on GoG & Steam -_-

[@JAZIBKALEEM]

Arena shooters like Quake and Unreal are eye candy! It's a tragedy that they're not getting the attention they deserve!

[@mckinleyostvig7135]

My first experience with LAN gaming was going to my friend's house every Saturday for heavily modded Unreal Tournament. His dad was a networking guy and turned their entire basement into a gaming setup with 24 repurposed workstations. RIP arena shooters, I miss you, please come back.

[@sirleeproductions]

wow, im finna be 22 here in july and watching this hit me with a wave of nostalgia at 8:51 unreal tournament 3 was da one i first played way bacc all those years ago along with halo and gears of war. i remember hopping on da hoverboard for da first few times and all da weapons were so cool and unique. marvelous times it was bacc then.

[@UNCSspartan84]

Unreal tournament 1999 goty firmly holds a place in my top 5 games of all time through out the years as some games switch out of that list. it is one of the games along side max payne and os runescape that got me into pc gaming at the time, i dont care to play today on pc but unreal 1999 is always installed and played every now and then

[@NutzlastB0hne]

I'll forever miss the boost dodge of UT2003... really couldn't believe it was a bug! There were sooo many maps where that jump felt absolutely integral. They "fixed" that in UT2004, which was one big reason for me to stop playing the series. And UT3 was such a disappointment by removing even more movement options... Limiting movement options e.g. reduces the amount of viable paths through maps, which gives them a more repetitive feel. It also makes aim the single most important skill. And that just sounds boring to me

[@gimok2k5]

I think UT3 is called that might be for one of multiple reasons: 1. With UT2004 being "the fixed UT2003" (and Epic back in the day even allowing people trade in 2k3 for 2k4), those two were basically merged into one two-part-installment. 2. UT3 is having a proper singleplayer campaign with a story, serving as kind-of sequel Unreal 3. Except it has the full UT multiplayer as one expects, and also uses its gameplay as the basis for the singleplayer mode. I think someone at Epic even used that as a justification once why it was called that when they announced the namechange from 2007 to 3. 3. It's the UT running on the Unreal Engine 3. Any of those, or even combined, and the name "Unreal Tournament 3" makes sense, even if it might still a bit weird.

[@SchpoinklebergCityUSA]

RIP in peace arena shooters. Quake Champions is holding on by a thread. It really sucks that Doom Eternal didn't bring back the Quake style multiplayer that Doom 2016 had

[@rellianthebonemeowster3450]

I really think that it's odd that people are surprised that EPIC repeatedly demonstrated a "cutthroat" approach to handling titles after their peaks. We are, after all, talking about the company run by a Guy who ran, tail between his legs, to Microsoft's Xbox division at the first sign of Piracy on PC and blamed everyone for the potential failure of his games. Sweeney's not determined to steer EPIC into becoming a single game development company. He's incapable of handling or facing anything other than "total, undeniable success." He's not able to accept that he doesn't have the Midas touch and that, sometimes, a bad idea or some poor execution will mean you have to face a setback. It's the guy's entire Modus Operandi. Focus on one single aspect of something until it's no longer seen as the best thing of its kind and then take it out back so he can stop "wasting resources" on something that isn't making all of the money all the time. Unreal Tournament got this treatment. Fortnite proper got this treatment. Paragon got this treatment and so did Gears of War.

[@dirge7459]

Yeah, that's what I wish people would talk about more in terms of EG's history tbh. All they made really, was a copy of Quake, but more jumpy and mutiplayer based (While Quake had both SP and MP and bots), and after that they basically left the platform and mocked it for some years before finally returning to believe they were owed a slice of the pie that they had abandoned for years. I still remember when Sweeney muttered "you won't find a game like gears on PC, but you might find something in Facebook games", talk about smug and condescending.

[@rellianthebonemeowster3450]

@Dirge "Smug and condescending" ought to be Timcent's middle name, honestly. Also "insecure and prone to projection". If he is accusing someone of doing something, it's because he thinks he should be the one doing it.

[@dirge7459]

@@rellianthebonemeowster3450 The dude collects rocks in the back of his mansions garden, like if that doesn't tell you about how insecure and weird he is, I don't know what will. Now that I think about it, I don't even think Timmy had an original idea, because UT was mostly made by other people and even then it was a copy of Quake, Jazz Jackrabbit was basically a copy of other platformers with furry mascot types as well.

[@Nik930714]

Oh I felt a sharp pain when I saw the title. UT 99 is still one of my favorite games, even just for the single player campaign, that was nothing more than the maps, but with bots. Its amazing.

[@nawfalmisconi1287]

Fun fact: the Redeemer weapon's name came from a church with the same name. A dev saw it and thought it'll be perfect name for the weapon.

[@resetget]

My intro to the Unreal series was actually Unreal Tournament 3. I had no idea what people thought about it at the time cause I wasn't very internet savvy at the time. I just knew people liked the series and pretended really hard to like UT 3 cause i just assumed people liked it. I even tried to get my friends into it. I was so glad to find out that everyone else thinks it's a big stinky pile of doodoo. It's really sad to see what has happened to the series over time. The radio silence is always the worst way to handle stuff like this, and seems like it always comes up in these dead games. Great video man, keep up the great work!

[@NiiRubra]

UT3 is fine, don't feel too bad about it, it's just that it looks visually busy compared to the previous entries and has less stuff in general, but it's a good game on its own (and more of a game than UT4 managed to be, unfortunately).

[@liveyourdreammedia]

I blame Fortnite. And epics greed ofc.

[@Joutube_is_trash]

Finally an entry that will hurt me emotionally.

[@winlover37]

I am baffled by how quickly Epic just dropped Unreal Tournament, like it never even happened. Sure arena shooters aren't big these days, but UT99 is such a masterpiece that deserves to be remembered and preserved.

[@cparty7790]

I remember taking an IT class back in High School, a bunch of us always showed up early to the computer lab since the class followed immediately after our lunch break. We would play UT or Battlefield 1942 on the school computers. Our IT teacher would walk in. We told him, "Teach, we're studying local area networks!" And he would just grin and shake his head.

[@michaelomondi-gq5yh]

dude thats fucking crazy we used to do the same for Halo 1 on PC in high school - cant believe Epic games did this to the game that built their company

[@huntrex1179]

I grew up playing Unreal Tournament with my family, even if I don't play it much anymore these days it's sad to see it go down like this.

[@AVGNROCKS1996]

“Unreal, a single player only game” Uh… the original Unreal had Multiplayer, in fact it had the most robust multiplayer of its time, including the first major game to have on disc bot support

[@nerdSlayerstudioss]

Meh, U2 was known for MP not the first IMO

[@AVGNROCKS1996]

Fair enough

[@ilenisaatio]

Oh the nostalgia the gameplay on this video gave me. So many fond memories. I got the UT weapon skins in Warframe for a reason. UT '99 was pretty much the reason I even got into online games. Before Unreal Tournament I had no interest (or more likely I was just too nervous about the concept) in playing online. Even now, I just need to turn my head to see my UT 2004 box on the shelf. Oh man this episode struck hard. Way harder than I expected. I need to go get some fresh air and stare into the rainy night (cue sad jazz sax). At least I got some answers. Thanks.

[@Gyrfalcon312]

The betrayal of their own game legacy... Holy shit, I was not prepared for that!

[@Kam916]

Ive still got my original copy of UT99 floating around my room somewhere and its a shame knowing that such a major franchise was left behind to languish.

[@kinger41]

I guess we've found even more ways to shit on Epic Games now that they've delisted the entire fucking Unreal series. For the love of god, just bring back Unreal Tournament for real this time.

[@dreipunktekind]

i remember being at a friends house in the early 2000s. His older brother had 2 good pcs and thats how i first got in touch with pc gaming, playing counter strike and unreal tournament. in the late 2000s i got my own notebook and we met up from time to time with some friends to have a small lan party. UT was always a game we fired up, just because it was fun to blow each other (and sometimes yourself) up with the rocket launcher. after we finished school we lost contact, i barely hear from them anymore. seeing those clips brought me back to those good times. really sad to see this franchise buried without a real reason. to me it still one of a must plays for a lan night. dumb to not release a new one, people would play it.

[@A_Spec]

Thant moment you open up a video about Unreal Tournament, and for a split second, you see a name. You rewind, frame by frame. There it is, a 1v1 match with friggin' Gohlink on Roughinery including brightskins. Those were the days man, those were the days.

[@Sentientmad9m]

I think epic should refund everyone that bought save the world.

[@eldrevo]

A shooter royalty indeed... Or at least it was. I too spent like half of my childhood in UT2004. I even played a lot of UT3 which I loved at the time and still admire some parts of it (like weapon and vehicle designs) despite the game as a whole not aging really well indeed. I was infinitely hyped about UT4 being developed, but... Yeah. What happened, happened. I guess Epic's strategy with UT4 was to capitalize on this engaged veteran community, and I see quite a few ways for them to succeed. Pulling the plug on the whole franchise is not one of these ways. What's interesting here is the reaction. Where Paragon has multiple clones and remakes being made by the fans, I'm surprised there's nothing going for Unreal Tournament. Maybe it's copyright or something, but still, I feel like if people wanted an arena shooter, they'd find a way to have an arena shooter.

[@yeahnope620]

I remember following the development of ut4 for a while. Yeah progress was slow but the dev team seemed to take it seriously. They were hosting streams, Q&A's etc. It looked like it was going to get made. Them shutting down servers for older UT games was definitely a slap in the face because the cost of those servers was less than pocket change compared to the income they were getting from Fortnite. It's kind of like a billionaire selling a 2nd hand tooth brush for the extra dough.

[@2old2steak]

UT4 was so disappointing. They opened it to the public when it was barely playable, and years later when it was finally coming together and getting fun they "suspended development" for Fortnite and wouldn't spare a single dev for a game that still had an active community. It really never stood a chance.

[@janpawulonduo2137]

I think the reason why "Unreal Tournament III" was titled as such, was because while gameplay-wise it's like an "Unreal Tournament 2007", campaign wise it feels more like "Unreal 3", since normally Unreal Tournament games have a career mode that's just about becoming a tournament champion. In UT3's story mode we are not taking part in Liandri's Tournament, but rather in a war, which feels more like something an "Unreal" game (without the "Tournament" bit in title) would do. So instead of having separately "Unreal 3" and "Unreal Tournament 2007", it's a fusion of the two - "Unreal Tournament 3".

[@Guarrow]

Damn, that makes me sad ...... Game could have worked. It had a nice community, wasn't costing much to Epic. And honestly, as an avid-fps gamer, I KNOW that some kids out there playing CoD and xDefiants and stuff are starving for some fast-fps movement game just like Unreal since Quake doesn't scratch the same itch. If a AAA game were to make a fast fps game catered towards those players, CoD and overall FPS crowd, I'm sure it could work. It just needs to « not just be for ppl who have played Quake 3 for 30 years »

[@jigglypuff3311]

bunch of people I played CoD with growing up (me included) fell out of call of duty and Titanfall 2 filled that void for a long time. there's still active servers. but Respawn has said they won't be making TF3, and Apex Legends doesn't scratch the same itch. it's still very different from Unreal, but like you said, there is a void for movement based arena FPS that isn't esports focused

[@noobnoob4800]

Damn, I knew someday this was gonna come.

[@pierre-mariecaulliez6285]

losing player interest to the point of being considered legaly dead ? Yes... Inevitable I'm afraid... Getting smothered with a pillow by the people you gave life to ? Should have never happened !

[@JinxdCrow]

I truly believe that Ut2004 was the best unreal tournament title... and they should just give us a remaster of that

[@mmoff3]

This one hurt. I remember being 5 or 6 and playing UT99 with dad and I have always looked forward for future UT games. Still love going back every now and then to replay single player modes

[@Spewa-em8cm]

I would be fine if they just took down the servers for UT99 and UT2004, we have fan servers so we can still play the game right? But why in the name of god did they wipe the slate clean and make it so nobody could even buy the games? This reeks of "upcoming shitty remake" to me.

[@PhantomDeth]

Epic are a pretty trash company these days.. They used make worthwhile most own games.. Unreal Tournament, Gears of War.. Now it's just child predatory trash content with Fortnite.. Massive fall for the company.. And I get it people might scratch their heads at that because they make more money now than they ever did before.. But the company is a joke now. No longer an industry leader and respected dev and publisher.

[@GrandDadGaming]

It hurts my soul to see my favorite series here Nice coverage, as per usual, top notch

[@TallGuy941]

Unreal Tournament was a big part of my teenage years, playing the OG Xbox version split screen with my best friend all the time and Unreal tournament 3 was the first game I ever experience mods

[@Xcelsior86]

Still getting goosebumps and getting nostalgic whenever I hear the music of the UT99 intro when flying into the Liandri building. Anyone else missing Bombing Run mode?

[@oliver_twistor]

I remember playing the original Unreal Tournament with my friends. I loved the level designs, especially the outdoor maps. So cool!

[@JonToyCars]

This was a series embedded in my gaming life, so many hours spent, fun hours, memories and laughs! I hope it's going to make a comeback soon!

[@MikuruX]

I would say that the first time I've ever played a Unreal game was during my time overseas with Unreal Tournament. Those were some fun times playing in LAN parties (couldn't play online due to where I was and internet being monitored). To be honest though, I found Quake Team Arena (with the Weapons Factory mod) to be the best time I've ever had with an arena shooter. As always nerdSlayer, thanks for taking me down memory lane. ^_^

[@awkwardsemantic4058]

"A skeleton crew sent to awaken a Behemoth?" Sounds like the plot of many a horror movie...

[@gamerkingdom1442]

I remember one time I was able to play Unreal Tournament 2004. IT WAS A RUSH!! Peak multiplayer shooter! Sad to see such a legendary series disappear for such a long time….

[@Helios8170]

I remember playing UT2004 on my parent's Mac with Ballistic Weapons installed. I never played multiplayer, just against bots, but I still had fun. Those were good days. As I grew older, I worked my way back through the series, playing UT3, 2, and eventually 1. RIP to Unreal.

[@XxXgabbO95XxX]

I just wanted to say that this is a great video. It really covered all the important aspects of it, such as the comparison with ID software and their treatment of quake. That tells you a lot. I won't expression my frustration with this whole situation, as this comment would basically become an entire blog post. But you covered it well.

[@daergar822]

I'd absolutely LOVE to see a Death of a Game on the Tribes franchise. Starsiege: Tribes was my favorite game of all time, and Dave Georgeson's handling of Tribes 2, Irrational Games' use of the Unreal engine for Tribes: Vengeance, and the F2P model for Tribes: Ascend were all depressing steps in a decent towards death for the franchise. Hell, there's a new Early Access game out called Starsiege: Deadzone that seemingly has NOTHING to do with the OG Starsiege franchise, but nobody's around to care anymore :( *Edit* I stand corrected, Starsiege: Deadzone is being made by former Hi Rez devs, who previously made Tribes: Ascend

[@magnawiz]

My favorite game ever 😢 The game with the editor that got me into game development. I hope we can all hang out in Facing Worlds, Phobos and Morpheus again some day

[@bokunogentoo4420]

15:46 I remember trying to get into Quake Live and going into team deathmatch servers because those had the largest populations, basically what happened was I'd get kicked (put into spectator mode, which might as well be getting kicked) from the match every time for not playing at the level everyone else in the game (who was likely playing Quake for the past 20 years unlike me) was playing. Even if our team won and me not playing as intensely as everyone else didn't harm our team, I'd still get kicked for not playing as aggressively because I was still learning the game. The few times I got into deathmatch games I didn't have this problem of getting shoved into spectator mode. So I think if they made a new UT that the community actually embraced, the focus away from team-based modes (not ignoring them completely but just making the non-team modes the "main" modes) is fine if you care about getting newcomers to play your game.

[@SquidGains]

Always something to look forward too when you drop a video 🤘

[@Isaacfess]

Dude, UT2004 was my life. Ever since my Dad introduced me to the series when I was a kid, I've loved it since. Still play 2004 to this day. It's so sad to see what the series has become. Thanks for covering this!

[@tacitus6384]

Morpheus map and music are still burned into my brain and I love it.

[@auronwatson2477]

Loved Unreal Tournament 2004, a few of my buddies and I played the hell out of that game. Not 100% sure what your next game will be, but I am fairly sure it's gonna be a game I'm very interesting in seeing you cover lol