Epic Games's next Unreal Tournament is free and crowdsourced

Epic Games has been pretty quiet over the past year. The North Carolina-based game development studio spent the better part of the last console generation focusing on the Gears of War series, and recently sold the rights to the blockbuster franchise to Microsoft. Earlier this week, the company finally broke silence with the announcement of their next title: Unreal Tournament 2014. 

 

The Unreal franchise catapulted the developer from a small-time shareware developer in Maryland to a triple A studio. The first game in the series, Unreal, was released in 1998 after three years of development in Epic founder Tim Sweeney's garage.  A breakout hit, Epic quickly followed it up with Unreal Tournament, in order to capitalize on the exponentially increased popularity in multiplayer gaming. Conceived as a competitive arena-based shooter, Unreal Tournament was loved by critics and fans alike. 

 

 

In addition to several modes of play, Unreal Tournament was celebrated for its artificially intelligent 'bots' that filled up matches when player numbers are short. With support for multiple graphics renderers --  at a time when most games supported one renderer like OpenGL or Glide to the exclusion of others -- and innovations like progressive texture detailing, colored lighting, the Unreal engine provided the foundation for the company to license its technology to other developers.

 

Since then, Epic has continued to develop the Unreal Engine technology which has over the past 15 years, powered hundreds of games on a staggering array of platforms. But for the better part of the past decade, the series has remained dormant as the company focused on titles like Gears of War, Infinity Blade and Bulletstorm. The last game in the Unreal series was 2007's Unreal Tournament 3.

 

But what makes this return to the Unreal brand so remarkable? According to project lead Steven Polge, the Unreal programming veteran credited with the original Unreal Tournament's bot AI, Unreal Tournament 2014 will be developed in the open with contributions from the Unreal community. That's right, while it's still being led by senior developers at Epic, Unreal Tournament 2014 is effectively a crowd-sourced development project. 

 

"From the very first line of code, the very first art created and design decision made, development will happen in the open, as a collaboration between Epic, UT fans and UE4 developers," wrote Polge. Development will focus on PC, Mac and Linux, though analysts say development for the Oculus and Project Morpheus VR headset platforms shouldn't be ruled out.

 

Code and content for the project is available for developers on GitHub, the code-hosting platform that is currently the choice for open-source collaborative software development. Polge admits this is going to be new ground for Epic.  "We don’t yet have everything figured out.  Things will probably definitely go wrong from time to time, and when they do, we’ll have to work through them together. But if you’re a fan of Unreal Tournament, a UE4 developer, or a future modder we hope you’ll join us. It’s going to be fun."

 

 

Even more surprising though, than this collaborative development model -- a model that has been gaining a lot of traction across the creative industries -- is the fact that Unreal Tournament 2014 is going to be free. It will take several months before the game reaches a playable state, but when it does it will be free. "Not free to play, just free." Instead, Epic is interested in creating a marketplace where the creators, artists, modders and gamers can buy and sell content for the game similar to the marketplace for Team Fortress 2.

 

The money exchanged from sales of content will be split between the creator/seller and Epic. In effect, Epic is letting the inmates run the asylum, except the asylum is a temple and the inmates are merchants setting up shop inside. Meanwhile it participates in a profit sharing arrangement. It's a much more palatable way of using micro transactions to finance the game and its development costs. 

 

Ultimately, it's a win for everyone: the community gets to define the next Unreal Tournament, and Epic strengthens the Unreal brand. Despite stunning advances in the latest version of the engine and the critical role it has played in game development over the past fifteen years, many developers and publishers have elected to license tech from smaller companies or focus on in-house technology. 

Frostbite 3 engine
 

For example, Electronic Arts has ensured that many of its projects use the Frostbite 3 engine. The goal being to ensure that there is a consistent knowledge base across its many studios, allowing the team that produces Star Wars: Battlefront to exchange its expertise with the developers of Dragon Age: Inquisition. In response to 'changes in the game industry,' Epic reduced the licensing cost of Unreal Engine 4, and sliced its revenue split with licensors from 25 percent to 5 percent.

 

Polge told IGN: "Unreal Tournament will be the base both for the continued evolution of the competitive FPS, and as a great way to enable aspiring developers to realize their visions for this kind of game." — TJD, GMA News