“Fans were waiting for the next big thing in action gaming, and the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo was just what they were looking for,” said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and head of Infogrames, Inc.’s Los Angeles studio. “We couldn’t be happier with the popularity of the title. The new game completely lives up to its Game of the Year heritage. Digital Extremes and Epic have done it again!”

According to statistics tracked by Web sites offering the demo, nearly 1.2 million users accessed the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo between Friday night and Wednesday morning. FilePlanet.com and GameSpot.com, two of the most popular online video game download destinations, reported more than 103,000 attempted downloads and more than 50,000 completed downloads respectively. On both sites, the demo is maintaining its position as the top download. In addition, the global Internet ‘Traffic Index,’ which tracks how fast information is transferred through the Internet, took a sizeable hit when the demo was released on September 13. As a result of so many people downloading the file, the average speed of the Internet worldwide was cut nearly in half.

'After the long hard hours the team spent working on this game it's really gratifying for us to see so many people so eager to play what we've created,' said James Schmalz, founder and creative director of Digital Extremes. 'It’s great to see the incredible reaction we’ve gotten to the innovations in gameplay that we’ve added to the sequel. It confirms what we set out to do in evolving the game to the next level.”

“It’s great to see the community that loved Unreal Tournament embrace the new iteration of the franchise in such overwhelming numbers,” said Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games. “I can’t wait to deliver the full version of the game and watch the community strengthen and expand as competitions, LAN parties and new, innovative mods are born from the new technology.”

Unreal Tournament 2003 is scheduled for release this Fall and will be published by Atari. The game will feature more than 30 environments, nearly 50 unique characters and all the action and excitement that made the original Unreal Tournament a smash hit. With new game modes like Bombing Run and Double Domination, as well as an all new graphics engine that leaves all other games looking dated, Unreal Tournament 2003 is set to redefine multiplayer action gaming.

For more information, to download the demo or to find download mirror sites, please visit the official Web site.