Epic Games stops development of Unreal Tournament

Epic Games has stopped developing for Unreal Tournament. The latest iteration of the well-known arena shooter series will remain free and available in online game stores, but the developer will no longer update the game. Unreal Tournament is still in the pre-alpha stage.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney told Variety that “Unreal Tournament is no longer actively being worked on.” The developer, he says, plans to sell some of its older titles through GOG.com. It is not yet clear which games are involved. Epic Games is also setting up its own online game store, which will compete with Steam.

Unreal Tournament is the ninth iteration in the series. It was announced in 2014 and the community was heavily involved in the development process. Unreal Tournament is based on the eponymous Unreal Engine 4, which was also developed by Epic Games.

The last major update came out in 2017. By then, four complete maps and nine different modes had been added to the game. In July of that year Fortnite came out and a few months later the now very popular battle royale mode. It now has 200 million registered players.