A month after approving the free play of certain old Unreal games, Fortnite creator Epic Games has publicly recognized and thanked a community of fans who've been working to keep them alive with updates for years.
Just last month, Epic gave a big thumbs up to free versions of Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament – two classic first-person shooters that form part of Epic's Unreal series – that are now available via the Internet Archive. At the time, a spokesperson told PC Gamer that "people are free to independently link to and play these versions," so needless to say, it's supportive of players trying these old gems without spending a penny (not that anyone could these days, with them being delisted). However, it's extra heartening to see Epic now give a shoutout to the OldUnreal community, which offers more than just links to free game downloads.
"Before we were known for Fortnite, you might have known us for another game: the one that started it all," Epic Games writes. "Between 1998-2010, we released nine titles in the Unreal franchise, including Unreal Tournament. The rest is, you know, history.
"While Unreal Tournament is no longer in development by Epic Games, servers for some versions of UT are still active thanks to a devoted community of developers and fans who provide patches and maintenance," it continues. "We want to thank the community at [OldUnreal] for their continued support in keeping the legacy alive."
OldUnreal has been doing its thing for years now – in fact, on the page for its Unreal Tournament patches, it says that it "took over maintenance of the Unreal Tournament code base after reaching an agreement with Epic Games in 2019," so the original devs have been aware for some time. It's been an ongoing passion project – OldUnreal says its main patch for the first game "was made to offer all Unreal players a new, completely overworked and fixed version for our old 'love,'" with bug fixes, new additions and improvements, on top of the fact that it's "still possible to join older servers with this version," too.
Epic is most likely highlighting it now since Unreal Tournament features in the latest episode of the Prime Video series Secret Level, which'll no doubt make a lot of new and veteran players curious about giving the games a go. It's refreshing to see the developer put the community in the spotlight, as well as direct players towards a new and improved way to play the old games.
