Unreal Tournament is a 1999 first-person shooter game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the Unreal series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Windows, and later released on the PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast by Infogrames in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Players compete in a series of matches of various types, with the general aim of out-killing opponents. The PC and Dreamcast versions support multiplayer online or over a local area network. Free expansion packs were released, some of which were bundled with a 2000 re-release: Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition.
Powered by the Unreal Engine, Unreal Tournament received universal acclaim, often being considered one of the greatest video games ever made, with reviewers praising the graphics, level design and gameplay, though the console ports were noted for having limitations. The design of the game shifted the series' focus to competitive multiplayer action with the releases of sequels Unreal Tournament 2003 in 2002, Unreal Tournament 2004 in 2004, and Unreal Tournament 3 in 2007.
In 2014, a pre-alpha version of a new game in the series was released titled simply Unreal Tournament, with the source code being freely available, but in 2017 Epic Games ceased development on it after they reallocated its development team to Fortnite Battle Royale, and a formal announcement of the end of its development was made later in December 2018.An Unreal 2018 | News | Unreal Engine Livestream
Gameplay
Unreal Tournament is an arena first-person shooter, with head-to-head multiplayer deathmatches being the primary focus of the game. The single-player campaign is a series of arena matches played with bots, where the player competes for the title of Grand Champion.Official Guide Book, p. 19. The player moves up the tournament ladder in order to challenge the current champion, Xan Kriegor, a mysterious being with exceptional skill.Official Guide Book, pp. 4,113. Also available is a practice mode, in which, as its name implies, the player practices a match. Match settings (such as score and time limits) can be customized. Also available are "mutators", which drastically alter gameplay aspects, such as "InstaGib", which makes players compete with instant-kill Shock Rifles instead of the normal weapons.Official Guide Book, pp. 19–22. Weapons include the Enforcer, the Rocket Launcher and the Ripper, which fires ricocheting blades. Each weapon has two firing modes which have different effects: for example, Rippers can also fire non-ricocheting blades that explode on impact. A special weapon is the Redeemer, which fires a miniature nuke and causes a large and powerful explosion.Official Guide Book, pp. 26–36.
Items such as body armor (which reduces damage taken), health packs (which heal players) and damage amplifiers are scattered across levels.Official Guide Book, pp. 37–42. Levels are set in a variety of environments, including spaceships, outposts and buildings like castles and monasteries.Official Guide Book, pp. 67–224. Many contain features such as elevators (lifts) and teleporters and obstacles such as water and lava.Official Guide Book, pp. 51–53. The game is backwards compatible with the majority of Unreal multiplayer maps. The PC version includes a level editor in which players can create their own levels, and the PlayStation 2 version supports the use of a USB keyboard and mouse, enabling players to play in a similar manner to the PC version.
For team matches, bots are used to fill the roles of the player's teammates. The player can choose the bots' skill level or have it automatically adjust to the player's performance. Bots can be further customized by changing attributes such as names, appearance and weapon preferences.Official Guide Book, p. 22. In team matches, players can give orders to bots on their team.Official Guide Book, pp. 47,48. The PC version supports multiplayer mode over the internet or a local area network (the original Unreal was mainly a single-player game).Official Guide Book, p. 10.
Game types Assault: This game type is played with two teams, one assaulting a "base" and the other defending it. The map is set up with objectives which the attacking team must complete (usually in sequence) such as shutting down a power generator, or entering an area. The team who first attacks then defends, and attempts to defend for the entire time they attacked. If they accomplish this, they win. If the team defending first assaults the base faster than the other team, they win. If both teams defend for the maximum amount of time the match is a tie.Official Guide Book, pp. 202,203. The Dreamcast version does not feature this mode. Capture the Flag: Players compete to capture the other team's flag and return it to their base. Competitive teams must use a great deal of teamplay. Both teams must defend the base from incoming attackers and get into the other team's base, take their flag and return to base.Official Guide Book, p. 170. Deathmatch: A classic every-man-for-himself player vs. player combat, the objective is to out-kill all opposing players.Official Guide Book, pp. 60,61. Domination: Two teams compete to control various control points to earn points. Standard maps contain three control points. Control of these points is initially accomplished through occupation (physically occupying the space), but control of a point continues until a player from another team occupies the space. The first team to reach the point limit, or that has the most points when a time limit has expired, wins.Official Guide Book, p. 136. Last Man Standing: Similar to Deathmatch, the player's objective is to remain alive longer than their opponents, putting an emphasis on number of deaths rather than kills. Players start with all weapons (except the Redeemer) fully loaded and have a set number of lives. Power-ups, including health and ammunition packs, are unavailable. Once a player runs out of lives, they lose.Official Guide Book, pp. 60,62. Team Deathmatch: Up to four teams compete to out-kill the opposing teams.
Four "bonus packs" were released, each adding maps, characters, or features. For example, Bonus Pack 1 adds "relics" as mutators. Relics are special items that grant a significant advantage to their holder. They include (but are not limited to), the Relic of Vengeance, which creates an explosion when its holder dies, the Relic of Regeneration, which regenerates the health of the holder, and the Relic of Redemption, which makes its holder respawn elsewhere with full health and weapons intact when they would normally die. Bonus Pack 4 adds a new version of Xan Kriegor.
Plot During the Human–Skaarj war, the New Earth Government was formed. Mining was the primary method of financing the war, but was unpopular with the working class, who grew weary of the working conditions and the war. The humans were losing the war, and riots broke out. The Terran system was surrounded by Skaarj forces, but a government team destroyed their mothership, and the Skaarj withdrew. Afterward, revolts and violence among the mining colonies were on the increase, and efforts to deal with them were unsuccessful. The government then came up with the idea of giving the violence an outlet instead. "Consensual murder" was legalized in the year 2291, enabling people to fight to the death under organized conditions. The Liandri Mining Corporation worked with the government and organized leagues and public exhibitions. Soon, these matches became more profitable than mining, and Liandri formed a professional league to compete in a "Grand Tournament", the most popular event in the sport. The game takes place in 2341, fifty years after the fights were first legalized.
Development
With a budget of $2 million, using 350,000 lines of C++ and UnrealScript, Unreal Tournament took around a year and a half to develop. When Unreal (the first installment of the Unreal series) was released in May 1998, it was well received by the press, but it soon became apparent that the quality of the network code used for multiplayer matches was hampering the game's further success. In the months following Unreals release, improving the game's multiplayer part became the top priority of the development team. Epic Games started considering an official expansion pack intended to improve the network code while also featuring new maps and other gameplay elements.
The team began work on the expansion in summer 1998, but the task became complicated by Epic's organizational structure. During the development of Unreal, the team members at Digital Extremes were working in Ontario, Canada, while the members at Epic were based in North Carolina, United States, requiring regular travel to Ontario. To remedy this, Epic decided to centralize the teams in Raleigh, North Carolina, and by September, work on the expansion could begin. Lead programmer Steve Polge set about laying the foundations for the new game types, such as Capture the Flag and Domination, and level designers created the first round of maps for testing. The content grew quickly, and soon the team realized that it had underestimated the task. In November, after a meeting with publisher GT Interactive, Mark Rein suggested releasing the work as a stand-alone game instead of an expansion. The team was reluctant at first, but soon accepted the idea, and in December the game became known internally as Unreal: Tournament Edition.
The development team for Unreal Tournament consisted of around 16 people. Most team members had worked on Unreal, though Epic hired a number of new developers to reinforce the team. Programmer Brandon Reinhart was one such hire, joining Epic in August 1998 to help with the support of Unreal and the development of Unreal Tournament. That December, Reinhart discovered an Unreal mod called UBrowser, which provided a new user interface for finding multiplayer matches. After showing it to James Schmalz, the lead designer at Digital Extremes, Schmalz decided to hire the mod's author, Jack Porter. After only a few weeks Porter was already working with the team, replacing the game's existing menu system with his new interface. Epic founder Tim Sweeney worked on improving the networking code along with Steve Polge, who also wrote code for AI, player physics and general gameplay. Erik de Neve was responsible for the LOD character rendering, and various extra optimizations.
During the game's development, the team lacked artists. The art director at Epic Games, Shane Caudle, and the artists at Digital Extremes could not make enough new textures because of the amount of diversity in characters and maps. To help with the skin and texture production, Epic contracted Steve Garofalo. The game's level and content management program, UnrealEd, was written in Visual Basic and considered buggy, but no one had time to fix it. The game engine had an object-oriented design, and the scripting language, UnrealScript, was considered to be more like Java. The modularity of the object-oriented design meant that programmers could make large changes without affecting other parts of the game. Other tools used during development included Microsoft Visual Studio and 3D Studio Max. All of the weapon sound effects were created by Sonic Mayhem. The soundtrack for the game, which employed the system of module files, was written by Alexander Brandon, Michiel van den Bos, Andrew Sega, Dan Gardopee, Peter Hajba and Tero Kostermaa. Unreal Tournament had support for the EAX Version 2.0 3D positional audio technology by Creative Labs and A3D 2.0 HRTF technology by Aureal Semiconductor out of the box.