'Unreal Tournament' 2014 Details: Epic Games To Release 'UT' For Free, Development To Be Open To Input From Developers And Gamers

Epic Games announced during a live stream on its Twitch page Thursday that “Unreal Tournament” will make a return in the near future.

According to Epic Games’ staff present during the live stream and an official post on the Unreal Engine Forums, “Unreal Tournament” is returning to the PC, Mac OSX and Linux as a free multiplayer first-person-shooter. That’s right. Not free-to-play but 100 percent free.

For those looking to play the next iteration of “Unreal Tournament” now, unfortunately you’ll have to wait. This installment to the “Unreal Tournament” franchise is being developed from scratch.

“It will take many months until the game is playable by gamers,” Project Lead, Steve Polge said in the Unreal Engine forums.

The next installment to the “Unreal Tournament” franchise is expected to take a new direction in game development as Epic Games and Unreal Engine 4 developers work in the open to build “UT” from scratch while taking input from fans, developers and gamers.

Developers with an Unreal Engine 4 subscription will also be able to contribute to the project through the Epic Games Github code repository.

Fans who aren’t Unreal Engine 4 subscribers will still be able to comment and contribute to the development of “Unreal Tournament” thorough the official forum set up for “UT.”

While “Unreal Tournament” will be completely free, Epic Games hopes to eventually introduce a marketplace where developers, modders, gamers and artists can buy and sell mods and content.

“Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic. That’s how we plan to pay for the game,” Polge explained in the Unreal Engine forum.

As development continues with “Unreal Tournament,” more details are expected to be available through the official wiki page and through an official newsletter available from Epic Games.

In celebration of the return of “Unreal Tournament,” Epic Games has also put classic “Unreal Tournament” games on sale through Steam.