Unreal Tournament 2004 is back and free for all

[ThunderBoy]

Just like Epic Games did for the original Unreal Tournament, they're giving full approval to OldUnreal to revive Unreal Tournament 2004 and keep it updated.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2025/...d-by-oldunreal-with-approval-from-epic-games/

 

[Neb Lleb]

Unreal Tournament never dies, baby.

 

[moonbits]

 

[DunkeyKong]

 

[Danieru-Emanyueru]

Nice, this is a game that will always be good.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

I'm starting to really resent not having a computer... But man, is Epic awesome! They just let you keep games after they are done selling them! Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbit, One Must Fall 2097... You know how much healthier gaming would be if every company took that same approach?

 

[Neb Lleb]

I'm starting to really resent not having a computer... But man, is Epic awesome! They just let you keep games after they are done selling them! Tyrian, Jazz Jackrabbit, One Must Fall 2097... You know how much healthier gaming would be if every company took that same approach?

Thing about Epic is, they're very corpo, but they do have a reverence for the games that got them to that point, so they will happily work on giving the communities for these titles the rights to freely distribute them instead when they inevitably delist them.

I can't name any other corporation with this odd reverence of older games and awareness of old communities.

 

[MrYesterday]

other corporation with this odd reverence of older games and awareness of old communities.

GOG?

 

[Bourru]

For years they didn't want us to touch Unreal, but fortunately they recently changed their minds by making an exception for the Old Unreal site. It is nevertheless regrettable that the source code for Unreal and UT99 is not distributed like that of Doom and Quake.

PS : Indeed, removing Unreal serie from GOG is not a very brilliant move.

 

[Sumea]

 

[Natsuyasumi]

oh very cool. I didn't have a powerful enough computer to play this when it was out, but I played it at my freind's house some times. I always got wrecked though

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Thing about Epic is, they're very corpo, but they do have a reverence for the games that got them to that point, so they will happily work on giving the communities for these titles the rights to freely distribute them instead when they inevitably delist them.

I can't name any other corporation with this odd reverence of older games and awareness of old communities.

Brilliant take.

They probably figured (correctly) that the vast majority of their money comes from developing and licensing the Unreal Engine, so they keep gamers on their good graces by letting us keep old titles... And it totally works!

 

[Ezri_Muldoon]

I can't name any other corporation with this odd reverence of older games and awareness of old communities.

Valve. Want to play Ricochet? A game no one played when it launched in 2000? You can do that right now, online. Servers are still up.
Same with Team Fortress classic (1999) DeathMatch classic (2001) Alien Swarm (2010) and even the abysmal failure that was Artifact (2018) is still up. Valve made it a free download.

Meanwhile Epic delisted every Unreal game from its store front. Even the single player titles. And nuked support for the Multiplayer servers.
Them allowing a fan version of a game they killed exist isn't some crazy act of good faith, it's indifference.

Besides. I love UT. But in terms of fan maintained competitive fast paced FPS? T R I B E S

 

[KenaiPhoenix]

Oh my God this is amazing!

I still have my physical UT2004 so I will dust it off and install it (I had it on Steam as well, but... well I dont want to start ranting about Steam)

Hopefully more people join in!

 

[PacGuy]

HOLY SHIT