The “Unreal Tournament” series is considered one of the most influential shooter franchises in the world. Epic actually intended to reboot the series. However, in 2017 the team was pulled to develop a failed “Minecraft-like game into a PUBG clone“ that was supposed to become a worldwide success under the name Fortnite: Battle Royale. But for Unreal Tournament, Fortnite’s success marked the beginning of the end.
What was the plan?
- Unreal Tournament is a cult shooter series, with three titles released from 1999 to 2007.
- In 2014, Epic Games announced that they would reboot the series along with fans (via gamestar). The game’s friends celebrated this.
- But then Fortnite came in between.
Epic always has to consider its “Unreal Engine,” one of the most powerful engines on the market; here you see what should be possible in the future:
Team from Unreal Tournament launched Fortnite: Battle Royale in just 2 months
Here’s how it really happened: Epic Games had launched a new super game in the summer of 2017 after many years: Fortnite – Save the World. The game was supposed to bring the new version of the Unreal Engine to the forefront in the summer slump of 2017; at least that was the plan:
- During the day, players could collect loot, build fortifications, and set traps.
- At night, they defended their fortifications against hordes of zombies.
- A sort of “daytime Minecraft” – then at night “shooting like in Doom.”
But the game was so overloaded with microtransactions and grind that it only survived for a short time before it ran out of steam.
While Fortnite flopped, the battle royale shooter PUBG simultaneously blossomed in 2017. It was the biggest game on Steam, a massive gaming phenomenon.
PUBG was also equipped with the Unreal Engine, had many technical problems, but was played like crazy on PC. The concept of “everyone against everyone and whoever survives wins,” which people knew from the cinema, was exciting and entertaining.
It also made PUBG the first real big hit on Twitch.
Many players who later became stars on Twitch, like DrDisrespect, Ninja, or Fortnite, were playing PUBG at the time – albeit in front of fewer viewers than later.
This changed the fate of the gaming world: As far as we know from a developer conference, Epic Games told the team that had been working on Unreal Tournament until then to switch to Fortnite and build a “battle royale” mode there. The team put this battle royale mode together in just 2 months and apparently wanted to return to Unreal Tournament, but by then it was already too late.
The developers of PUBG were raging, but Fortnite became such a mega-success that Epic Games now sent all forces to Fortnite: Battle Royale to constantly keep adding content. To do this, they killed another hopeful project, the shooter Paragon, and also stopped the development of Unreal Tournament, as officially announced in December 2018 (via gamestar).
At that time, one could mostly hear the cries of distress from Paragon fans, who still accuse Epic Games of killing their game, which had so much potential, for Fortnite. But the fans of Unreal Tournament were also severely affected by Fortnite’s success.
Epic plans free reboot of Unreal Tournament but kills it
This was the next plan: After years of silence, there were two messages for Unreal Tournament in December 2022. Epic then took almost all Unreal games off the market (via pc gamer).
But at the same time, code hints in Steam were found in December 2022 that Epic Games was planning a game called “Unreal Tournament 3 x”:
- The game was supposed to be a remaster of Unreal Tournament 3.
- It was supposed to be completely free, without microtransactions and tricks.
- It was supposed to be released on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and GOG and allow crossplay.
This was a big glimmer of hope for the beleaguered fans – although the game was never officially announced, but had only appeared in the Steam code.
So it has gone now: In June 2023, another change was discovered in the Steam code: Apparently, Epic Games “secretly” killed the reboot of Unreal Tournament 3. The page was reverted to an earlier state.
Since Epic Games has practically delisted every Unreal game in 2022 and the glimmer of hope for a current Unreal Tournament 3 has also been extinguished, fans can no longer officially play their favorite franchise but are dependent on private servers.
The players are desperate and furious. Two culprits have quickly been found: Epic Games and their mega success Fortnite.
From the perspective of Unreal Tournament fans, Fortnite, which they actually don’t care about, has now killed their favorite games for the second time. Meanwhile, Unreal Tournament is actually the father and midwife of Fortnite.
Epic sacrificed many things for the success of Fortnite: Battle Royale:
The original players of Fortnite are really pissed off – and rightly so
