Epic Games allows free download of ‘Unreal’ and ‘Unreal Tournament’

Game preservation is a hot topic among gamers and developers right now. It’s good news that a company that plays an important part in gaming history has explicitly expressed support for its games even after being aware that they are being shared for free online.

The classic shooting game Unreal and its multiplayer sequel Unreal Tournament can each be downloaded from the Internet Archive.

Currently, there may be young gamers who only know Unreal as a 3D game driving engine. Unreal took its name from Epic’s Quake-style 3D shooting game released in 1998 and was developed as Epic’s core product.

The shooting game Unreal, the progenitor of the game engine Unreal, was not a cultural touchstone like other contemporary shooters such as Doom or Half-Life, but it gained popularity in the online multiplayer field with 1999’s Unreal Tournament and also released console versions such as PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast. Done.

Although various updates and special editions have been released over the years, the original version of the game is currently not available for purchase or play unless you can find the original disc. However, on the Internet Archive site unrealclass Unreal TournamentYou can get an older version of . Recently, user-operated Discord Server and ResetEraIt can also be found in

Strictly speaking, downloading these files is a copyright infringement in most countries. After all, it is a commercial product sold at retail stores.

However, an Epic spokesperson told the Unreal community on Discord that users can not only download the original game, but also apply community-developed patches to run it on modern PCs. PC Gamer checked with Epic Games to see if it was officially delivered, and Epic Games also confirmed it.

“Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament are available on archive.org, and users are free to play these versions,” an Epic representative said.

Even considering other general news in the gaming industry, Epic’s confirmation is very open. Nintendo has doubled down on its “emulators and ROMs are absolutely prohibited” stance in several countries, making exceptions for its own museum and services like Nintendo Switch Online. It also sent legal teams to several sites that host game ROM files from before the 1990s, requesting that the files be removed regardless of whether Nintendo games are available in some form on newer systems.

However, there are companies that take an attitude of respect for gaming history. Good Old Games (GOG) recently launched a retention program to update and maintain 100 classic PC games so they can continue to be played on the latest hardware and operating systems, all with permission from rights owners. Unreal and Unreal Tournament are not included in this list.

GOG’s promotional message was, “The games that shaped today’s users are being erased by time. Forgotten, incompatible, and unplayable. But you can fight back.”
dl-itworld@foundryco.com