Unreal II multiplayer details

In a post on the official Unreal II forums, Legend's Scott Dalton revealed extensive new details about Unreal II's upcoming XMP team-based multiplayer mode. The XMP mode will be at the core of the upcoming Xbox version's multiplayer and will also be released in a multiplayer expansion pack that will be free to owners of Unreal II for the PC, which was released early this year.

In Unreal II's XMP mode, teams fight over control of energy and deployment points, plus four artifacts that must be captured to win a match. There are three player classes: the ranger, the tech, and the gunner. Teammates must intelligently combine their skills, weapons, and vehicles to win. All classes can perform a number of skills. For example, all players can revive teammates and can augment their movements with jump jets and sprinting, but some classes are better at these tasks than others. Additionally, the scoring system has various modifiers to encourage support roles.

The ranger is the lightest and most mobile of the classes, assuming the role of medic and assassin. The ranger is the only class that has the ability to heal teammates and its light armor allows will allow players to be extra stealthy. The tech is a battlefield engineer who is equipped with medium armor and has the ability to repair armor, hack into electronics, and can deploy turrets and defenses. The heaviest and slowest class is that of the gunner. The gunner specializes in heavy weapons and demolitions.

To around the XMPmaps more quickly, players have access to three kinds of vehicles. There's the fast, two-person raptor; the three-person harbinger, with transport and anti-turret features; and, finally, there's the two-person main battle tank, called the juggernaut.

Unreal II's XMP is currently in the beta testing stage. No release date has been announced for the PC multiplayer expansion. The Xbox version of Unreal II is scheduled for a year-end release.