Epic Games has agreed to put its 1998 shooter Unreal on the Internet Archive, essentially making the classic sci-fi alien blaster available for free and preserving it for the future. They also gave the same permission to host the Unreal Tournament there, unleashing multiplayer shenanigans that spawned increasingly fast-paced sequels in the early 2000s (not to mention the origin of one of the most memorable multiplayer FPS maps of all time, Facing Worlds). .
Epic recently gave permission for this, according to the Old Unreal fan group (as noted by people on Reset Era). This fan site is at the forefront of making it simple to download and install currently free games. Archive.org is a great library, but it’s not always the most user-friendly library. That’s why the Skaarj guardian gang has created two installers who will do everything for you. Here one for Unreal Gold AND one for Unreal Tournament.
Basically, they download .iso files from the Internet Archive server and run everything necessary to install the games on newfangled computers. I tested it for Unreal Tournament and yes, everything looks stunning. However, you’ll still need to take a few extra steps to play online with others, says the Old Unreal gang.
Epic Games removed the first Unreal game from Steam a few years ago, along with all other Unreal games. The reasons for this are obvious, considering Epic has its own store that directly competes with Steam. However, it still irritated some people. Maybe now that two of these games are completely free and no questions asked, this move can be forgiven. We’ve been seeing some moves here and there towards game preservation lately, such as GOG renewing its pledge that classic games will be playable on newfangled PCs. And this isn’t the first time Epic has given away its original photos for free (although it was a ephemeral birthday celebration). But yes. All this is generally good. Free games are good.
Unreal, for its part, was an essential and impressive breakout piece at launch. It scared me to death. But no problem, I confronted these concerns years later by asking various members of the development team what it was like to do it in 1998. The tiny answer? People worked 70-80 hours a week and created some nice alien cows.
