Epic Games announced today they're killing off a bunch of classic games removing them from stores and turning off their online services for retro delights like Unreal Tournament.
Why are they doing this? They're consolidating their services directly into their modern all-in-one Epic Online Services, so they don't want anything not using that to stick around that they have to maintain.
Here's the full list of titles being removed from stores (some are already gone like Unreal Tournament), and having their online play turned off on January 24 - 2023:
- 1000 Tiny Claws
- Dance Central 1-3
- Note: Dance Central VR online multiplayer will remain available
- Green Day: Rock Band
- Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess
- Rock Band 1-3
- Note: Rock Band 4 online multiplayer will remain available
- The Beatles: Rock Band
- Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars
- Unreal Gold
- Unreal II: The Awakening
- Unreal Tournament 2003
- Unreal Tournament 2004
- Unreal Tournament 3
- Note: We have plans to bring back online features via Epic Online Services in the future.
- Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition
Hopefully the community (like perhaps OldUnreal), will find a way to get online going again for some of the classic Unreal Tournament games. Otherwise, that's a whole lot of FPS history being lost.
For Unreal Tournament 3, it looks like they're re-branding it as Unreal Tournament 3 X and making it free to play, as you can see they already did it on the Steam page and you can see all the changes on SteamDB history but it's not actually live they're just re-purposing the Steam page.
On top of that they also said they're removing Linux and macOS versions of Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star today. No reason given for either.
If you do want to stock up, the old Unreal games are still on GOG but probably won't be for long.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: omer666At least there is now an official line drawn between Epic MegaGames and Epic Games.For a time it looked like Nexuiz was going to be the more modern successor when they licensed out the name and design to be produced under THQ with some actual money behind it but it was so laughably inferior to the older free version and just played like garbage, it was literally online for like...8 months total before it was taken offline, and the quick join didn't work 90% of the time it was up. The name licencing also split the community as they had to change the name for future versions of the free edition to Xonotic. (still a great game, but nowhere near the playerbase it once had, and while I love it...it's definitely not unreal).
As for the master server, as with many late 90s multiplayer FPS, players have been using their own server lists for a long time now.
I just hope that some day, a (yet to be known) dev is going to release titles as groundbreaking as Quake 3 or UT, so that we can live another golden age of the arena shooters...
People were also saying for a while splitgate was going to be the modern UT replacement, but the game felt more Halo than UT.
It seems like any modern shooter once money gets involved it invariably turns to shit so they can force in things like battle passes, day 1 DLC, or they invariably become a hero shooter with limited maps for some reason.
As usual community will do all the work to maintain thoses gems,and few years later the work done by the community will be aknowledge by Tim Sweeney's corporate and they will take back all that work and sell it as classic or HD edition, just like microsoft did with age of empires 2.
Last edited by Jahimself on 15 December 2022 at 7:08 am UTC
BlackBloodRum Dec 15, 2022
I often hear people say.
Well this. This is why it's not cool.
Anyway, for those who may or may not care.. shameless plug:
https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v13/
Quoting: BlackBloodRumI often hear people say.You forgot “please add Denuvo” (weird, but the Steam forums of some games are full of it).
Additionally, with steam, just keep them on steam and use steam facilities. That's it. No more need to keep them or maintain them. Just sell as-is
Quoting: BlackBloodRum"What's the problem with DRM?" "What's the problem with always online DRM?" "It doesn't really affect me, I can still play my games just fine!"TBF in this case none of the unreal games have DRM, which is the only reason why they'll still be playable after this. Even the CD key in 2k4 is only used by the old cd installer and for master server auth, if you're not using the master server you can still join and create games.
I often hear people say.
Well this. This is why it's not cool.
Anyway, for those who may or may not care.. shameless plug:
https://www.defectivebydesign.org/
https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v13/
Quoting: LachuPlease, remember Unreal Tournament was Open Source, but it do not apply to assets. Thanks to that it was possible to provide modified game engine, with enhancement multiplayer.Only the SDK and the renderers are open source. UTPG and OldUnreal got access to source code with agreement from Epic but don't have any right to redistribute it.
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me