Unreal Tournament Fan Page
Last updated: 2023-05-27
This game has always been my favorite. While once one of the biggest, most popular games in the world at a time by Epic Games, it has now retired to a very tiny, but quite dedicated fan base which continues to play the game series.
Gameplay is described as an Arena Shooter, very similar to Quake I almost feel like they're the same game with slightly different weapons and movement configuration. Even many of the maps are crossed over between the two. This is the opposite of when people say they want a realistic shooter, you have fast-paced movement options, original weapon set with a lot of variety, no reloading and lots of skill depth. There's no limit to how good you can become if you practice, and you can see that in the champions of the game.
I think that learning curve is one of the reasons which has led to the community shrinking/dying, the other big one I wonder-- is paradigm. There's no achievements in UT, no meaningful character customization, not a whole lot of progress to be unlocked. But that's the thing, you're always on equal footing. Players always have the same set of weapons and all the tools and power at their disposal. There's no such thing as building up or strengthening your character by grinding mobs. All you have is you, your keyboard, and your mouse. A true duel is ready.
My favorite aspect of this game, besides its fun gameplay, has been the community development. Any game which supports community-development has it made in my eyes. Give the gaming community the tools and let them run with it. You see this with Starcraft where you let people make maps, and they run with!!!! They make multiple entire new games and modes out of it. Example: tower defense? all the minigames ppl made? DOTA? Entire game *GENRE* has produced out of that (MOBA-- see Heroes of Newerth, DOTA, HOTS, and LoL) which has produced the biggest prizes in e-sports history.
And that goes for Unreal Tournament too, entire new games have been developed from mods, see Alien Swarm. I played this as a mod for UT before it came out, the idea was to make the player viewport topdown so they're looking at the map (focused on the player) and then BAM you have a twin-stick shooter. Valve picked it up and turned it onto a full-on new game.
My conclusion to game developers, the best thing you can do is equip the gaming community with tools to modify or add-on to your project. Because they will run with it, they will do things you don't expect, and they may create things. Beautiful things sometimes. Give us the map editors!!