One of the most iconic FPS franchises, made by
Epic Games. it started as a primarily single-player game, but its multi-player successor,
Unreal Tournament, saw such great success that the series has essentially split into three branches:
Single player games:
Multiplayer games:
Console exclusive games:
Like many popular FPS series,
modding potential is a large part of its appeal and success; both the single- and multiplayer parts of the series have seen many releases. Part of the dodgy reception of UT2003 and Unreal 2 is the fact that their modding tools were half-broken. Of particular interest is the fact that all of the original Unreal's assets and textures are available in Unreal Tournament, so with the right mod (along with transferring the music and maps from the original game to the UT folders) it is essentially possible to turn UT into one big "super-game" with a full single
and multiplayer component.
The Unreal series fell into obscurity near the end of the last decade, helped along by a number of factors: the rise of team-based / "tactical" shooters (starting with
Counter-Strike and ending with the current
Call of Modern Battlefield glut), the overwhelming popularity of
Team Fortress 2 (which combined the strategic elements of the former with Unreal's action-packed and over-the-top vibe), and
Epic Games's recent focus on the
Gears of War franchise. However, Epic president Mike Capps is quoted as saying that the franchise is due for a revival. Furthermore, the Unreal
Game Engines, one for each Tournament, have seen extremely widespread use throughout the gaming industry, with dozens of games, in just about every genre, released using Epic's code. (In comparison, only one game
ever has used the
Halo Combat Evolved engine besides
Halo itself and its
Anniversary remake—the obscure
Stubbs the Zombie.)
The series in general provides examples of:
- Art Evolution: Compare this
◊ and this◊ with this◊ and this◊.* In case you didn't catch the difference, that's the Deck16/17 map in Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Tournament III.
- Compilation Rerelease:
- Totally Unreal: Unreal + Unreal Tournament
- Unreal Gold: Unreal + Return To Na Pali
- Unreal Anthology: Unreal Gold + Unreal Tournament GOTY Edition + Unreal II (plus the multiplayer expansion XMP) + Unreal Tournament 2004: ECE Edition. *
Unfortunately, Midway couldn't get the rights to publish the mods.
- Unreal Deal Pack: Unreal Gold + Unreal Tournament GOTY + Unreal II (without XMP this time) + Unreal Tournament 2004: ECE Edition (again without the mods, but with the community bonus pack maps) + Unreal Tournament III Black.
- Convection Schmonvection: Lava is deadly only when touching it in this series.
- Crapsack Universe: Well... let's just say that, across the series, the Unreal universe's setting it's the Earth extremely Darker and Edgier, and that's being generous.
- Energy Ball: What some of your guns fire.
- Excuse Universe
- Game Mod: THE series for mods outside of Half-Life. Both the Singleplayer and multiplayer side of the franchise have seen a large quantity of high-quality releases, due largely to the fact that it was the first game that didn't require knowledge of C programming to make a mod. Unreal 1 featured UnrealScript, which was simpler and less complex than C, and the main game itself was written in UnrealScript, which gave people a strong example to look at. In short, there will be at least one person using a custom model on your map.
And if your mod is good enough, this goes even farther, since Epic Games has made in the past many Updated Rereleases which included many community-made mods, and, starting from 2003, the 1 Million Dollar Make Something Unreal modding contests that have spawned several commercial games like Killing Floor and Red Orchestra''. - Girl of a Thousand Voices: Sioux "UnrealGrrl" Blue, who does nearly ALL of the female voices of the Unreal series. May it be a female announcer or a female player, you'll always hear her.
- Grey and Gray Morality: A common topic on the franchise as a whole. There's no such thing as "100% good" or "100% evil" characters; all of them are guided by their own interests. For example, the Skaarj are militant bastards who enslave weaker species, but all have a sense of honour.
- Lazy Artist: Many of the Unreal Tournament (and some of the few Unreal) remakes for Unreal Tournament 2004, excluding those from artists such as Yournan or the people behind the "Community Bonus Packs" or the two "Flag Packs", are just direct ports of their original versions, without any visible change in the scale or even the sounds and textures.
- Taken Up to Eleven with ports of items from Unreal Tournament all the way to Unreal Tournament III. They tend to look really ugly in comparison to the decade-younger graphics of UT 3.
- Living Gasbag: The creatures called Gasbags and Giant Gasbags are basically balloons with tiny arms and big eyes, which float towards you slowly and shoot fireballs.
- Loads And Loads Of
Characters Skins and Models: And how! - Planet Terra: The Skaarj call humans Terrans.
- Rocket Jump: Possible across the series; in most cases you can do it with a weapon you spawn with.
- Secondary Fire: A staple of the series, with each weapon having it's own use depending on the situation.
- Trope Overdosed: Just so you know, this page had to be broke onto several different pages. Now imagine how big this page was. Wiki Magic at its finest!
- The Wiki Rule: The Liandri Archives.
- Wolverine Publicity: Starting from Unreal Tournament 2003, expect to find Malcolm in any and every Unreal game, even if it's just a short cameo.
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