Epic simply closed some doorways, however it might be opening a really enticing window certainly. Today, it seems to have inadvertently introduced a brand new utterly free model of the wonderful Unreal Tournament 3 that you simply’ll be capable of crossplay with associates throughout Steam, the Epic Games Store, and even GOG (via Wario64).

It’s known as Unreal Tournament 3 X, and in accordance with its Steam page, there’s no catch — “No microtransactions and no strings attached. This is the fully-featured, award-winning first-person shooter you fell in love with… completely free.”

And, assuming the itemizing is correct, the sport will nonetheless embody all its main modes, together with the single-player marketing campaign from Unreal Tournament 3 Black and the Greed and Betrayal gametypes initially launched within the 2009 Titan Pack enlargement.

We’re fairly assured all of that is legit as a result of you can see in SteamDB that these modifications rolled out simply hours in the past — changing the identify, complete description, and belongings for the earlier Unreal Tournament 3 Black with those you see above as an alternative.

Another cause I think it’s legit: Epic wouldn’t verify or deny any of this once we requested. The firm wouldn’t inform us if it’s a mistake, a vestigial mission, or present some other doable cause why the web page so considerably modified (like, say, its Steam developer account getting hacked or one thing).

Also notice that whereas the discharge date nonetheless confusingly reads “November 19th, 2007,” SteamDB reveals that’s merely its authentic launch date on the Windows platform, interval. Technically, the sport didn’t arrive on Steam until 2009, but it surely’s displayed the 2007 launch date ever since. You can even peek the earlier Unreal Tournament 3 Black itemizing from Steam via the Wayback Machine, in case you’re curious.

There doesn’t look like a list for the brand new UT3X on GOG or the Epic Games Store but — or any Unreal video games on the Epic Games Store in any respect, for that matter. But we anticipate they’ll seem after Epic makes this sport announcement official. And, hopefully, a launch date.

Earlier as we speak, Epic introduced it’ll be shutting down the servers for six different Unreal video games, together with UT3, UT2004, UT2003, and the unique UT, amongst different titles. While I wouldn’t say UT3 was essentially the greatest — motion in 2004 and the unique each have their very own frenetic flavors I take pleasure in — I believe I’ll be fairly happy with this consequence. I can all the time return and play the others through LAN, in any case.