Unreal Tournament Open Development

[Leshma]

So far there is little information about the game. What we know:

• based on Unreal Engine 4 (duh!), developed in cooperation between Epic game devs, Unreal engine devs (also Epic but different branch) and UT fans
• open development model, game will be developed via github, both epic devs and fans will work toghether, anyone with desire to work, skills and UE4 licence (19USD a month) is welcome
• this year is 15 years anniversary for UT, I believe they will release first basic version before 2015.
• base game will be free (not F2P, just free), but there will be marketplace for mods where modders will be able to give away, sell and exchange their work (Epic will take the cut from every transaction and that will be main funding source for initial development)
• there has been shown interests from some original UT devs on the official forums in the past few days, mainly original soundtrack composers Michiel van den Bos and Alexander Brandon (duo that worked on Unreal, UT and Deus Ex soundtrack), also composer of UT2003/4 Kevin Riepl is interested as well
• game will follow original UT art direction, which means that organic design of UT2003 and UT3 will be abandoned in favor of industrial, futurist design of UT99 and to some degree UT2004

Here is the UE4 shooter demo (many of you probably seen it), looks a lot like Mass Effect but that kind of art style will be in new UT as well (maybe something even more drastic, like Mirror's Edge art direction):

[Nessaj]

Looks cool, but yeah, definitely got the look of "The Citadel" from Mass Effect.

[Leshma]

That's just UE4 demo, posted it to show possible art direction. Has no ties with UT4 (actual name will be just Unreal Tournament).

Forgot to add that game will come out for Windows PC, Mac and Linux. No console versions in plans atm. If they release it for consoles I bet it will be for Steam Machines only (because that is the only console that supports keyboard and mouse as input devices). Actually that is granted because Steam Machines runs SteamOS which is just another flavor of Linux.

[cmp]

Steam Machine is a PC, not a console.

[enigmatic_stranger]

Steam Machine is a PC, not a console.

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[Kafein]

The bullet effects and decals look absolutely horrid compared to everything else, it's funny.

Also what, art style changed between UT and sequels ? I didn't see it. The art style did change between the first Unreal games and the Tournament ones, but Tournament games had so many diverse maps it's hard to say they had an art style.

• base game will be free (not F2P, just free), but there will be marketplace for mods where modders will be able to give away, sell and exchange their work (Epic will take the cut from every transaction and that will be main funding source for initial development)

I like this. I hope it will work.

[Leshma]

Unreal engine at that time was capable of rendering huge areas compared to Quake 3 engine but that resulted in blocky graphics. When they improved it and released UT2003, they went overboard with meshes creating detailed organic shapes everywhere and that way changed the look (also made it cartoonish in a way). They also added Mr Crow and other "funny" characters you could choose from, while in original UT all combatants were sporting futuristic gladiator look. Both those things were fixed in UT2004 to a degree. But when UT3 came out, Mr Bleszinski decided that UT should share similar look and feel with Gears of War. That decision resulted in complete organic overhaul of art style and game lost it's industrial touch. On top of that it was bloomy and blurry like hell on default.

Now when Cliff Bleszinski is out of the picture (left Epic awhile ago) designers can go back to original style of the game, which was one of the reasons why series are successful and well known.

[Leshma]

First play session. Nothing special but it shows open development model in all its glory. They started building a game two weeks ago.

[Leshma]

Unreal Tournament 4 Pre-Alpha builds -> You can play and test it for free.

NOTE: PRE ALPHA

Movement/Weapons and basic feel of the game is being tested, and there's constant changes/updates. Don't expect too much eye candy and a lot of placeholders.

You can also test other peoples mods/mutators/maps with it I believe.
Nothing is final yet, still in prototype stages.

Download:
https://ut.rushbase.net/raxxy/Builds

What you can't do is edit the values, tweak and create content. For that you need an UE4 license. These are just compiled version the average Joe can run and test.

Extra Note:
These builds are provided Beyondunreal, based on the latest Epic GIT
IRC: #BeyondUnreal on GlobalGamers IRC Network

It's so that everyone has the same build to test out Multiplayer, until EPIC starts releasing their own official builds which is gonna take a bit of time still.

PS. The executable is in:
C:\Games\UT-WINDOWS-06645b9\WindowsNoEditor\UnrealTournament\Binaries\Win64

[Prpavi]

hehe agreed first tought was "looks like Citadel" I'm an absolute sucker for this kind of setting, will try it out, probably won't play it longer then couple of weeks

[Leshma]

http://www.twitch.tv/fatal1ty/c/4889293

[Kafein]

Yeah, finally a dome by someone that doesn't completely suck at the game.

I really want to install UT3 right now