Unreal Tournament 3 X is going to be free-to-play (pic: Epic Games)
Epic Games has shut down a bunch of older titles, including Rock Band 1-3 and Unreal, but Unreal Tournament 3 will live on.
The news of a swathe of older games having their online features switched off is commonplace now, with Ubisoft amongst the publishers that have shut down multiple, mostly Xbox 360 era, games this year.
This time though the publisher looking to save money is Epic Games, who you wouldn’t think would need to worry given the ongoing success of Fortnite. Nevertheless, they’ve announced they’re closing down the servers on over 15 games.
This includes all the Unreal titles and most of Harmonix’s back catalogue, for everything except Rock Band 4. The silver lining, though, is that Unreal Tournament 3 will be getting a new makeover.
Curiously, Epic Games doesn’t seem to have made a formal announcement about Unreal Tournament 3 X yet and the game is not mentioned on the Epic Games Store. However, it is on Steam, with a full description of what it is.
The Steam description says that it will support crossplay between all PC players, across Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG.com accounts. It’ll be free-to-play but apparently there’ll be no microtransactions or other complications.
Modes mentioned include Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, 1v1 Duel mode, Warfare, Vehicle Capture the Flag, Betrayal, and Greed.
List of Epic Games due to have their online services switched off
Dance Central 1-3 (Dance Central VR unaffected)
Green Day: Rock Band
Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess
Rock Band 1-3 (Rock Band 4 unaffected)
The Beatles: Rock Band
Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars
Unreal Gold
Unreal 2: The Awakening
Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2004
Unreal Tournament 3
Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition
Battle Breakers
DropMix
SingSpace
Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star (Linux only)
Over two dozen weapons are also promised, as well as a full single-player campaign – presumably a remastered version of the one from the original 2007 game.
The Steam listing seems to have been put up early by mistake, but there’s no indication of when it will be available.
As for Harmonix, it’s easy to forget that they were bought by Epic Games last year, as they’ve not announced any new games since.
In fact, it’s not clear whether they’ll be making any new games at all, as everything since the acquisition implies they’ll merely be making ‘musical journeys and gameplay’ for Fortnite and the metaverse.
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Epic Games has shut down a bunch of older titles, including Rock Band 1-3 and Unreal, but Unreal Tournament 3 will live on.