Credit: Epic Games
The popular arena shooter Unreal Tournament 2004 from Epic Games and Digital Extremes has been given a new lease of life thanks to its devoted fans, almost 22 years after its release.
The update includes numerous fixes and technical improvements. The authors wrote a new SDL backend for Linux and macOS, implemented a new renderer, and migrated the entire codebase to modern build systems.
Thanks to an agreement reached with Epic Games in 2025, the OldUnreal team took over the maintenance of the Unreal Tournament codebase and regularly releases unofficial patches for the series.
These updates improve the stability, security, and performance of the game client, servers, and editor, and add new features such as 64-bit support, additional renderers, and more.
In late 2024, the OldUnreal team (also with Unreal’s permission) posted images of the original Unreal (1998) and Unreal Tournament (1999) discs for free download on the Internet Archive digital library.
In December 2022, Epic Games removed Unreal Tournament 2004 (and all other games in the series) from sale on Steam and shut down the servers. The success of Fortnite left Unreal Tournament without a future, but at least its past is secure.