It’s been nearly seven years since the last Unreal Tournament game was released, but we’re going to have to wait even longer.
Speaking during a panel discussion at this year’s Game Developers Conference, Epic founder Tim Sweeney has stated that they have no plans for a new installment in the series.
As reported by CVG, the developer is instead focusing on its upcoming multiplayer survival game, Fortnite.
Traditionally, each iteration of the Unreal Engine has played home to a new installment of the game, starting with the first game back in 1999 - itself an offshoot of the single-player FPS series. Epic has traditionally used the franchise to show off the advanced features of its engines; but that ethos appears to have changed.
“We have a lot of nostalgia for the game but we’re actually not developing anything in the Unreal game universe at all at the moment,” Sweeney stated.
In other news, Sweeney used the panel to announce a new business model for licensing out the engine to developers. Whereas previously access to all of the engine’s resources came at a rather high fee, the company is now switching to a subscription model. For $19 a month plus 5% of the gross revenue earned from any commercial release, developers can now gain access to all of the required tools - plus the engine’s source code - needed to create a product.
The news has gone down well, with Valve’s Gabe Newell stating: “This is smart. It’s an enlightened way for developers to create great games and easily bring them to Steam.”
So there we have it; no more Unreal Tournament (at least for the time being), but good news for developers. Maybe one of them will be kind and develop a fitting tribute to the venerable multiplayer shooter.
Dale Morgan
Latest posts by Dale Morgan (see all)
- Amplitude HD reaches its Kickstarter goal - 23 May 2024
- Evolve launch date revealed - 23 May 2024
- The Wolf Among Us: Episiode 4 out next week - 22 May 2024
