Unreal Tournament (also called Unreal Tournament 4) was a First-Person Shooter, and the fourth installment of the Unreal Tournament series, also developed by Epic Games using the Unreal Engine 4. Unlike the past games of the franchise, the game used to be free to download and play.
The gameplay remained more or less the same as previous installments: a fast-paced arena shooter with extended movement options. This time, however, only the very basic gamemodes (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag) remained, with the additions of Blitz (an "Attack vs. Defense" gamemode which mixes aspects of CTF and Assault), Team Showdown, Duel Showdown (team-based and 1-on-1-based elimination modes where items disappear after being picked, respawning at the end of each round) and Siege (played in Blitz maps, it's a PvE mode akin to the Invasion mode of 2003 and 2004 where players band together in a team and fend off the oppoaing faction, composed of bots). The arsenal was also extended with the incorporation of a Grenade Launcher/Mine Layer hybrid (the Rocket Launcher returning to single rocket/triple rocket modes of 2003 and 2004), and both the regular Minigun and its Stinger counterpart, as well as the Sniper Rifle and the Lightning Gun, shared weapon spots. As for the movements, the Double Jump disappeared, and in its place Wall-running and Crouch-sliding were added.
The game was available between August 2014 and January 2023 in a public pre-alpha state with little to no story information released in the Epic Games Store. Unusually, it was being designed in collaboration with the player base, who contributed to the game with maps, skins, and even gamecode until August 2017, the month the last update for the game was released prior to Epic Games focusing all their efforts into Fortnite: Battle Royale due to its unexpected success. Still, while the game was declared abandoned in the tail end of 2018, it was still available for play until December 14th, 2022, with Epic Games announcing that the game would be declared unavailable to be played in its state from January 23th onwards.
Ever since then, it's survived by the community fan project UT4UU
, literally UT4 Unofficial Update. It introduced a lot of optimizations and Quality-of-Life features to the game while removing a part of the clutter.
On August 20, 2024 during Gamescom, it was announced that Unreal Tournament would be included in a Prime Video CGI animated anthology series Secret Level (2024) with the episode Unreal Tournament: Xan.
This game provides examples of:
- 100% Completion: Skill Tokens are scattered across the Tutorial maps and the gametype introduction maps. Collecting them all unlock achievements.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Doing well earns you experience and levels you up, but it only unlocks cosmetic upgrades.
- The Artifact: Even though the mode was renamed to Blitz, the maps associated with the mode display the prefix FR-, short for "Flag Run", its previous name.
- Ascended Extra: Samael was just an AI bot in Unreal Tournament III. Here, he's a fully fledged character, and one of the first Necris characters revealed for the game.
- Auto-Pilot Tutorial: While the Advanced Movement and Weapon tutorials were interactive training courses, the tutorials for each gamemode (Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Duel, Blitz and Team Showdown) still required you to sit through a video, with a common match of the gamemode following afterwards.
- Back from the Dead: The Necris return for this game, with two released player models (Samael and Visse) having been subjected to the Necrification process.
- Battle Royale Game: The Showdown mode, where two teams pick their spawn points and start with the usual Impact Hammer+Enforcer loadout. Items spawn in maps in their usual locations, and once they're picked, they disappear until the next round. There's also "Duel Showdown", the 1-on-1 equivalent.
- Capture the Flag: The game's version of the mode divides the match in two halves, with a half-time in between.
- Character Customization: As with previous Unreal Tournament games, you can customize the look of your character. Unlike previous games, this takes the form of collectible player models, skins, and headgear.
- Comeback Mechanic: The Overcharge item in (Team) Showdown spawns when there are 50 seconds left in the map. It grants the player a huge boost of health, a damage amplifier and extra movement speed. Let time pass, however, and the item will kill you.
- Competitive Multiplayer: The game is composed entirely of competitive multiplayer modes, supporting Solo and Team Deathmatch, Duel, Capture the Flag, Showdown and Blitz.
- Decomposite Character: The Rocket Launcher returns from Unreal Tournament III, but it has been split in two weapons. The Rocket Launcher proper (which acts like the Unreal Engine 2 variant, with single fire and charge up to three rockets as its firemodes) and a new weapon called Grenade Launcher, which acts like the one in Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, being able to lay grenades and proxy mines.
- Demoted to Extra: Many playable characters from previous games were reduced to bots here.
- Destructible Projectiles: Redeemer missiles can be destructed by enemy weapon fire.
- Drafting Mechanic: Each round in the Showdown and Team Showdown modes start with the players on each team taking turns in order to choose a spawnpoint. In this case, the advantages can vary from just spawning near desirable items to surrounding nearby enemy players.
- Expy Coexistence:
- The regular Minigun and its Stinger counterpart from Unreal Tournament III share the same place in the weapon roster.
- The Sniper Rifle and its replacement in the Unreal Engine 2 games, the Lightning Gun, can also be found on maps.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: Downplayed. The Tutorials feature Skill Tokens that act more like a Bragging Rights Reward but help in getting more XP at the beginning of your account.
- Le Parkour: Movement options are considerably expanded from past games, to the point where the very first tutorial level simply teaches you how to do things like slide, walldodge and wallrun your way around a map.
- Microtransactions: In the form of skins and headgear for your characters.
- Mythology Gag:
- The brief song that marks the beginning of a round in the Blitz gamemode is the climax of the main menu theme from Unreal Tournament 2004.
- Unlike all other menu themes, the menu theme for this iteration, while still keeping the riff, also incorporates the riff from the title theme.
- The description of DM-ASDF mentions the Axon Research Corporation.
- The game's iteration of CTF-Face went once more to being an asteroid stranded in the middle of space, like the original CTF-Face from UT and CTF-FaceClassic from 2004.
- Taye:
- His Swamp Rat costume description mentions him being sent to recover sensitive N.E.G. assets from the swamps of Na Pali, referencing the WAR-Hostile map from Unreal Tournament 3.
- His Thundercrash armor mentions being mentored by Malcolm and preparing for the Liandri Grand Tournament ever since the age of 9, much like his bio in 2004.
- The Rocket Launcher went to being a weapon with rocket-based firemodes (instant rocket and a Charged Attack of three rockets) akin to the Championship-2004 iteration of the weapon.
- Visse's bio mentions her being a Blademaiden, much like her UT incarnation.
- Garog:
- His bio mentions him being a Skaarj Trooper, a nod to the class being made playable in Unreal for botmatches and multiplayer games.
- The bio for his Naalgesh costume mentions him being given that name after his rough treatment of the Nali, being called "Lord of the Nali", a reference to another character, Kraagesh, being called "Lord of the Krall" in 2004 and Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict.
- The description for CTF-Pistola mentions the 7-Day Siege and the Human-Skaarj War, recurring background elements of arenas and characters in Tournament.
- Much like they did with DOM-Olden, DOM-Sesmar and AS-OceanFloor back in Tournament, the description for DM-Salt mentions Liandri blowing up cash to turn a sacred site into a Tournament arena.
- The description of DM-Temple mentions scanning teams sent to Na Pali to recover equipment from the crash of the Vortex Rikers, this being the ship that transported Prisoner 849 and crashed on the planet prior to the events of Unreal. The temple features the six-pronged crucifix that's typically found on Nali sacred sites.
- Much like UT and Unreal Tournament III, the logos for the Blue and Red teams are the Vortex Rikers insignia and the symbol found in Tarydium barrels back in Unreal.
- Nostalgia Level: As other games of the Tournament part of the franchise, it features versions of Deck 16 and Facing Worlds. Earlier betas also used to feature Morbias.
- Playing Both Sides: The description for the map CTF-TitanPass mentions a very old conflict between the Pangol and the Verans and how Liandri kept supplying them both with weapons. In the end, only Liandri was benefitted, as the Pangol now eke a precarious living as miners while the Verans no longer exist.
- Secondary Fire: Par for the course, but UT4 adds some tertiary fire modes not seen since Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict, generally done by pressing one fire button while holding the other.
- Stat Overflow:
- The game features a rare, usually well-hidden item which gives the player 100 hitpoints called Keg O'Health that surpasses the standard cap of 100. The player, however, won't be able to pick up other healing items until their life meter drops below 100.
- Health Vials can overheal at a rate of 5HP.
- Storming the Castle: Blitz, previously called "Flag Run", is basically STC: The Game. It requires the attacking team to invade the enemy team's base and place their flag into the enemy team's flag spot.
- Teleportation with Drawbacks: Much like previous games, the Translocator is limited to seven rounds (although they do replenish by themselves), flag carriers in Capture the Flag will drop the flag if they translocate, and if the beacon is damaged, the user is killed if they attempt to translocate. Note that the trope doesn't apply to environmental teleporters, i.e. the teleporters to the sniper roosts in CTF-Face.
- Time Trial: The Movement and Weapon tutorials have par times for getting across them.
- Timed Power-Up: All of them last 30 seconds, and the Impact Hammer's EMP secondary attack can be used to remove them.
- The Damage Amp, which increases weapon damage by 2x.
- The Invisibility powerup, which turns the user invisible.
- The Berserk, which increases weapon rate of fire by 2x.
- Training Dummy: The Weapon Tutorial rooms had a bunch of them. In every case, the dummies (modelled after Taye, one of the playable characters) were either static or running from one point to the other.
- Travel to Projectile: The Translocator launches a beacon (with primary fire) that teleports the player on command (with alternate fire), but it may also be damaged by the enemy. Said module can be retrieved too, by using the primary fire after launching it. This game keeps the charge count to 7.
- Tutorial Level: A complete Crash Course was developed for the game, introducing the player to the game's movement and weapon mechanics separately. These maps, as well as the gameplay introductory maps, have Skill Tokens scattered across the area.
