Epic's Sweeney: Unreal Tournament on Hiatus

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Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney says that his company will not release a full retail version of Unreal Tournament in the next "several years," a break from the studio's steady series of UT releases between 1999 and 2007.

"Unreal Tournament is certainly a major long-term priority, but we're planning not to release a major retail game in the series for several years," said Sweeney in a G4 interview transcribed by BigDownload. "So we have that effort somewhat on hold while we work on a few other initiatives." "Sometimes it's okay to let people miss a property," said Epic's Cliff Bleszinski in a separate G4TV interview, noting the successful return of Fallout.

Sweeney did add that Epic will continue to support Unreal Tournament 3 modding efforts, and is planning to "open up the engine to more people to use freely" sometime in the future.

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From The Chatty
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    July 24, 2009 1:12 PM

    This is good news. The latest UT really did feel like it came way to soon. Hopefully they can produce something as epic as 2k4 the next time around.

    You know what game series I really DO miss though? something that's begging for a remake?

    Tribes. Yea. You heard me.

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      July 24, 2009 1:16 PM

      I agree. every other UT is awesome. They should take a break and go back to it when there is something new to offer in the series.

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      July 24, 2009 1:23 PM

      if the guys who bought the license had a brain they would see 1943's success and do the same thing with Tribes 1.

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        July 24, 2009 1:29 PM

        I think I made this exact comment, or at least the same sentiment, a week or so ago. After much thought and deliberation, I firmly believe Tribes 1 is the best video game I've ever played.

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          July 24, 2009 1:53 PM

          Agreed, I'd kill for an updated version on XBLA.

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            July 24, 2009 2:18 PM

            I'm switching to the console for a lot of games but I can't imagine playing Tribes on anything but a keyboard and mouse. The jetpack is hard coded to my muscle memory!

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              July 24, 2009 2:20 PM

              I grabbed a copy of the PS2 release of Tribes 2 (titled Aerial Assault) and its totally playable. Took a couple rounds' worth of getting used to, but totally playable.

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              July 24, 2009 2:49 PM

              I think we're at the point where this could happen and it would play fine.

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              July 24, 2009 3:14 PM

              [deleted]

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            July 24, 2009 2:19 PM

            And I would happily air disc the shit out of you, sir. Maybe someday this can happen.

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          July 25, 2009 6:53 AM

          This needs to be done

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      July 24, 2009 1:34 PM

      It looked great if you had the hardware, but I was hard pressed to see how it was otherwise substantially different from UT2K3/4.

      And it seemed to have this problem where the many available game types and rule sets splintered the player base.

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      July 24, 2009 2:27 PM

      You mean Fallen Empire: Legions, the remake of Tribes in all but name?

      http://www.instantaction.com/

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        July 24, 2009 3:16 PM

        [deleted]

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        July 24, 2009 3:49 PM

        last time I checked it didn't have inv stations, vehicles, base defenses, generators, etc... it's just a jetpack shooter, not really a Tribes remake.

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          July 25, 2009 7:29 AM

          The Jetpack combat was good, this is to be sure, but really, to me, Tribes had all the vehicles, the base defenses, that whole 'setting up' phase? Thats what drew me to Tribes. No doubt.

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          July 27, 2009 5:03 AM

          I think they're adding more stuff as they go along...its like a WIP that will expand over time (thats how they billed it once upon a time at least).

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