Unreal a good game nobody remembers, is now 20 years old

And it's free.

Epic Games' classic first-person shooter Unreal is free right now

Epic Games is currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of its seminal first-person shooter Unreal - and you can get it for free on Steam and GOG while the party lasts.

Unreal, if you're unfamiliar, launched in 1998, and was the very first game to be released using Epic's cutting edge Unreal engine - the same engine that, some two decades and four major iterations later, is powering the likes of Epic's own battle royale juggernaut Fortnite, as well as Sea of Thieves' glorious waters.

The original Unreal was quite a revelation at the time, particularly on the visual front - the gaming world hadn't seen anything quite like Unreal's striking landscapes, vibrant skyboxes, dazzling lighting, rich textures, and evocative medieval-sci-fi architecture before. Look!

f course, Unreal played wonderfully too, with development and design duties on the first-person shooter jointly handled by Epic and Digital Extremes - the latter of which is probably best known these days for its impressive free-to-play shooter Warframe.

Epic's celebratory freebie actually takes the form of Unreal Gold, which bundles together the original Unreal and its 1999 expansion Return to Na Pali. And if you'd like to relive the halcyon days of 1998 (or are looking to experience a bona fide chunk of gaming history for the very first time), Unreal Gold is free on Steam and GOG until Friday, May 25th.

Nobody remembers, are you kidding???

Just as Doom, Duke or Quake, Unreal is there in the Gaming Pantheon for eternity.

No one can pretend to be a gamer if he did not visit at least one of the U-three : UT, UT return to Napali and UT99.

When memories got the hold of you ^^

Ps : Ureal 2 was dogshit though ^^

What are you talking about? The game is quite well known.

You're thinking of Unreal Tournament.

Average Joe, or younger gamer will not have heard of this.

Don't use age as an excuse, or are you sayin' that i'm old???

Beware, my flak gun is ready ^^

don't... its upsetting.

Gears of War's shallow shiny short term appeal killed EPIC GAMES and Unreal Tournement... the fools.

I perfectly remember Unreal. Especially because one of the most popular engines of the past 15 years is named after it.

Have a cookie.

I remember reading about this game in an issue of PC Gamer UK. It was an upcoming game going through development Hell. The hype was sky high, and the graphics engine was going to be the cutting edge of the cutting edge.

I feel old.

I remember Unreal quite well. Nice intro animation. I got bored with the gameplay halfway through and went back to Quake 2.

The SP was pretty drawn out, but it was an amazing looking game for 98. Then came UT99.......one of the best mp shooters ever.

I don't know how juub remembers that, he was only 8 years old when it released, but a lot of us here are old cats.

How could we not remember the game that, together with halflife, completely changed gaming in the year 1998.

For one you don't even know my age and for 2, even if I was 8 that'd still be plenty to remember it.

I know your age, your 28, and 8 years old is a bit too young to remember the impact this game had.

but there's nothing wrong with that, on the contrary I would trade places with you in an instant.

You don't know my age.

And that's false too. My little cousin was 8 years old when OOT released and remembers the impact it had. 8 years old isn't 4 years old.

Simple. A lot of us were Quakeheads (MP) and couldn't be bothered with other games. Even my flight sim time languished while I was busy with Quake and Quake 2.

LAN MP exploded during the late 90's and into the early 2000s. Win XP even included LAN functionality through Firewire during its first few years.

you already said your age, and 8 years old is still too young to grasp stuff like this, no matter who you are.

And again that's false. It's easy to remember the impact something had when you were young. You honestly think kids who were 8 years old at the time Pokemon was big don't realize today how big it was?

And for the record I never gave my real age on online forum.

8 years old during the late 90's isn't that young an age anymore. Back then, PCs were being pushed into homes. There certainly were "edutainment" and other software aimed at that demographic.

Now, 3 years old and remembering would be pushing it. ;)

At 8, I was already reading my dad's Ballantine WW2 books and grasping their content.

an 8 year old could surely admire, like and even love a certain type of game, but he/she doesn't understand concepts. So an 8 year old doesn't understand what kind of an impact a certain game has on gaming in general.

Even more so during that time, there wasn't any youtube and internet was still in its infancy.

Then you must have been a very unintelligent 8 year old child.

Also while the internet wasn't as ubiquitous as it is today, it was by no means in its infancy. 1998 isn't the 80's.

wel yeah , in the strict sense of the word an 8 year old will remember it, but I was more talking about how it influenced gaming in general. I knew when I saw unreal, gaming would never be the same again.

and as for quake, I must be honest, I played quake 1 before , but I didn't know it had mouselook, I never even noticed quake 2. So you already knew about the mouselook and 3d acceleration.

But unreal really took 3d acceleration to the next level. I will never forget seeing that system run on 2 voodoo 2's.

My ass you did.

I still remember when Unreal came out and I was trying to save up to get a Voodoo graphics card to run it with 3D acceleration. Shortly later my dad got a new PC for himself and I didn't need to save up any more as his PC ran it with ease.

I wasn't too fond of it though, it was Unreal Tournament I ended up falling in love with. I also found Quake games to be better than Unreal back in those days.

Unreal was the first game ever that took my breath away with the graphics. The minute you left the ship it was breathtaking....then.

I got the free edition on gog, it was a tough game to play on later windows versions as I remembered but I'm sure it's fine now. Your first encounter with a Skaarj was unforgettable. And those titan guys, man!

Unreal shooting was extremely weak, pea shooters with bullet-spongy enemies. Quake I/II both have far better level design, so no surprise. Unreal had extremely good AI, story-narrative and dynamic music with a few scripted sequences.

Unfortunately is was overshadowed by it's spin-off and some game called Halflife, which pretty much ended the doom era.

Man, threads like this make me feel old and I'm only 34 lol.

Gonna install Unreal Gold on my PC and try to relive those childhood memories this weekend.

Anyone old enough, remembers

I played thru the first Unreal back then coupla times.

-but found it rather crude game compared to the competition.

Unreal 2 was far better in every way. So if you wanna play old skool, go with Unreal 2.

Legendary <3

When the Internet went public in 1996, it came in with a vengeance. Forums were the social media of the time and by 1997, there were huge numbers of forums, including a number of early sites dedicated solely to 3D gaming cards. Us 3dfx Voodoo owners already had an early rivalry with Rendition Verite owners.

During the 90's before the Internet, BBSes and online services (GEnie, Compuserve, etc) were also widespread. Communicating and gaming online were quite common. Heck. My first online dogfight was against a friend across town via modem back in the late 80's.

Oh, I member!

I remember watching my brother play, cause I was 10 years old and not very interested in playing this myself. I was all over UT when it came, though.