Unreal Tournament

Did You Know?

• The success of Unreal Tournament spawned four sequels, including a cancelled reboot.
• Dark Sector by Digital Extremes was initially planned as a spiritual successor to Unreal Tournament.
• In 2019, the OldUnreal community received approval from Epic for providing semi-official patches.

Plot

During the Human–Skaarj war, the New Earth Government formed, financing the war through unpopular mining. After the Skaarj withdrew following the destruction of their mothership, revolts and violence among mining colonies increased. In 2291, the government legalized consensual murder to channel the violence. The Liandri Mining Corporation organized leagues and public exhibitions, and these matches became more profitable than mining. Liandri formed a professional league for a Grand Tournament. The game takes place in 2341, fifty years after fights were legalized.

Development

Unreal Tournament was developed over about a year and a half with a budget of $2 million, using 350,000 lines of C++ and UnrealScript. Epic considered an expansion pack to improve network code and add new maps and elements. Work began in summer 1998, but organizational structure complicated it, with Digital Extremes in Ontario and Epic in North Carolina. Epic centralized teams in Raleigh, North Carolina, by September. Lead programmer Steve Polge laid foundations for new game types like Capture the Flag and Domination. Content grew quickly, and in November, after a meeting with publisher GT Interactive, Mark Rein suggested releasing the work as a stand-alone game. The team accepted, and by December the project was internally called Unreal: Tournament Edition.

Reception

Unreal Tournament sold 100,998 copies in the United States by the end of 1999, reaching 128,766 copies and $5.42 million by early 2000, behind competitor Quake III: Arena. From January to October 2000, it sold 234,451 units and earned $8.94 million in the region. It received a Silver sales award from ELSPA for at least 100,000 copies in the United Kingdom. By November 2001, total sales were close to 2 million units.

The game received universal acclaim, with a Metacritic score of 92 out of 100 and a GameRankings score of 94%. Critics praised the graphics, gameplay, and level design. Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot praised the multiplayer, weapons, and level design. GameSpy stated it raised the bar for first-person multiplayer games.

PC Zone praised the intelligent bots but criticized the music. AllGame complimented the addictiveness of Assault mode and replay value. Computer and Video Games found the single-player mode excellent, and Eurogamer noted playability on low-end systems.