Traditional area shooter Unreal Match 2004 has risen from the grave and is now accessible to obtain without spending a dime, all because of a devoted group of followers working with developer Epic Video games’ blessing. And the upshot of all that is the much-loved area FPS has acquired its first patch “in over 20 years”.
When Unreal Match 2004 initially launched, Eurogamer branded it the “mom of all first-person shooters”, praising its large map roster, its 32-player Onslaught mode, and the welcome introduction of autos. All that was sufficient to earn it ye olde 9/10, and loads of different individuals liked it too. Nonetheless, help for Unreal Match 2004 formally led to 2022, when Epic terminated its legacy on-line companies and pulled the sport – alongside a variety of titles – from digital storefronts.
But it surely seems the tip was not the tip. Late final yr, fan neighborhood OldUnreal introduced it was working to revive Unreal Match 2004 (the group beforehand resurrected Unreal and Unreal Match 1999), patch it with bug fixes and high quality of life enhancements, then launch it without spending a dime – all with Epic’s blessing. And that day has lastly arrived, with Unreal Match 2004 (as noticed by PC Gamer) accessible to obtain proper now.
By heading over to the OldUnreal web site, Home windows customers can obtain and run the group’s newly launched installer. That, in flip, will seize the unique Unreal Match 2004 disc picture from OldUnreal’s servers, extract their contents, set up the sport, and robotically patch it to the newest model. Linux and macOS are pointed towards the group’s Github web page.
“Please observe that that is the primary public patch for Unreal Match 2004 in over 20 years,” venture supervisor (and professor of pc science) Stijn-volckaert writes within the sport’s new patch notes. “We now have carried out quite a few fixes and enhancements, written a brand new SDL backend for Linux and macOS, and even a brand new renderer. We now have additionally migrated the complete codebase to trendy construct methods. Some new bugs might have slipped in!”
So there you go! The “mom of all first-person shooters” can now be downloaded and performed without spending a dime – and what higher time to begin revisiting some online game classics than proper now, when AI corporations are making it more and more troublesome to purchase new {hardware}?
