The goo gun was the best. | Image: Epic Games
Epic just closed some doors, but it may be opening a very attractive window indeed. Today, it appears to have inadvertently announced a new completely free version of the excellent Unreal Tournament 3 that youâll be able to crossplay with friends across Steam, the Epic Games Store, and even GOG (via Wario64).
Itâs called Unreal Tournament 3 X, and according to its Steam page, thereâs no catch â âNo microtransactions and no strings attached. This is the fully-featured, award-winning first-person shooter you fell in love with… completely free.â
Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge
The Unreal Tournament 3 X page on Steam. Tap here to open a larger image.
And, assuming the listing is accurate, the game will still include all of its primary modes, including the single-player campaign from Unreal Tournament 3 Black and the Greed and Betrayal gametypes originally introduced in the 2009 Titan Pack expansion.
Weâre pretty confident all of this is legit because you can see in SteamDB that these changes rolled out just hours ago â replacing the name, entire description, and assets for the previous Unreal Tournament 3 Black with the ones you see above instead.
Another reason I suspect itâs legit: Epic would not confirm or deny any of this when we asked. The company would not tell us if itâs a mistake, a vestigial project, or provide any other possible reason why the page so substantially changed (like, say, its Steam developer account getting hacked or something).
Plus, roughly an hour after we published this story, Epic alerted us that the page has been updated. It now additionally reads: âThis title is currently unavailable and will be available in the future. Stay tuned!â Sounds kind of like confirmation to me.
Note that while the release date still confusingly reads âNovember 19th, 2007,â SteamDB shows thatâs simply UT3âs original release date on the Windows platform, period. Technically, the original game didnât arrive on Steam until 2009, but itâs displayed the 2007 release date ever since. You can also peek the previous Unreal Tournament 3 Black listing from Steam via the Wayback Machine, in case youâre curious.
There doesnât appear to be a listing for the new UT3X on GOG or the Epic Games Store yet â or any Unreal games on the Epic Games Store at all, for that matter. But we expect theyâll appear after Epic makes this game announcement official. And, hopefully, a release date.
Earlier today, Epic announced itâll be shutting down the servers for six other Unreal games, including UT3, UT2004, UT2003, and the original UT, among other titles. While I wouldnât say UT3 was necessarily the best â movement in 2004 and the original both have their own frenetic flavors I enjoy â I think Iâll be pretty satisfied with this result. I can always go back and play the others via LAN, after all.
Update, 3:36PM ET: The gameâs Steam listing has additionally been updated to read: âThis title is currently unavailable and will be available in the future. Stay tuned!â