Epic has released the Unreal Tournament 2004 official demo includes five playable game modes, and offers fans their first taste of Unreal Tournament 2004’s two new game modes: the introduction of the hyper-charged Onslaught mode and the return of the fan-favorite Assault mode, which last appeared in the original Unreal Tournament. The demo also features established gametypes like Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and Bombing Run. Read more for download links ...

Despite the recent closure of Legend Entertainment by Atari, the Unreal II: XMP community remains strong. During the months leading up to and following the release of XMP, a group XMP beta testers and community members have been working on a pack consisting of top-notch third-party XMP maps (9 of them) and mutators. Read more for details and download links ...

Beyond Unreal brought a chat log from 3DGPU's Unreal Tournament 2004 IRC chat online with, amongst many other people, Epic's Mark Rein. You can check the entire chatlog right here, but the most interesting bit of the conversation was : "MarkRein[Epic] The demo will be out within two weeks." We had Far Cry demo, UT2004 is next, now all we need is a HL2 & Doom3 demo :)

The anticipated patch for Atari's Unreal 2 XMP free multiplayer addon has been released. This patch brings your retail game to v7710 and helps to reduce server CPU usage, fixes a variety of bugs, adds a number of new features such as in-game server browser, a modified version of the Harbinger vehicle and plenty more. Read more for details and download links ...

Noticed on VE3D that Legend Entertainment has today been shut down by the powers that be at Atari, according to credible sources. Legend recently completed work on the XMP addon, which added an excellent multiplayer mode to Unreal 2. This was released free on the internet for existing owners of Unreal 2 and also in a special edition version of the game that was released recently. The patch that is currently being tested will be released and that the master server for the game will continue to operate. The LEgend Ent. website has already been taken offline and the Unreal 2 Xbox port (developed by Tantalus) is still on track for release. No Atari representative could be reached for comments, no surprise there... Thanks Andy!

As promised, Atari has released the full version of their Unreal 2: The Awakening XMP addon for free. The Unreal 2 XMP includes 8 maps, 3 vehicles, and 3 character classes. To install, you need the Unreal 2 CDs, but it does not have to be physically installed. Read more for download links ...

"Unreal Tournament 2004 is the next evolution of the greatest competitive computer game ever created," said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and general manager of Atari's Los Angeles studio. "The addition of new modes, mods and maps as well as the controllable land-, air- and space-based vehicles, means Unreal fans are getting an entirely new experience featuring devastating vehicular combat and wide scale warfare." Check out some new screens ...

Right after the Unreal II SE announcement, Atari now also revealed that a demo version of Unreal 2 Expanded Multiplayer a.k.a. XMP, will be released tomorrow. The demo will not require a copy of Unreal 2 to try out and will feature one map entitled XMP-Garden. The full version of XMP, which is included with Unreal 2: Special Edition, will be a free download for existing owners of Unreal 2, and is absolutely brilliant (thanks Andy). Stay tuned for we WILL have it on our fileservers of course ..

Atari is expanding the gameplay of Unreal II: The Awakening this December with Unreal II: The Awakening ­ Special Edition for the personal computer. The Special Edition package will include the original single-player campaign, first released in February 2003, as well as an all-new multiplayer experience called XMP, or “Expanded Multiplayer.” Developed by Legend Entertainment (an Atari studio) in conjunction with Epic Games, Unreal II: The Awakening is the follow-up to Epic Games’ 1998 smash hit Unreal and incorporates the same story-driven gameplay, cunningly ferocious enemies and nail-biting tension that made the original title a best seller.

"Unreal Tournament 2004 is the next evolution of the greatest competitive computer game ever created," said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and general manager of Atari's Los Angeles studio. "The addition of new modes, mods and maps as well as the controllable land-, air- and space-based vehicles, means Unreal fans are getting an entirely new experience featuring devastating vehicular combat and wide scale warfare." Check out some new screens ...

Atari and Epic Games announced today that the release date for Unreal Tournament 2004, the highly anticipated follow-up to last year's smash Unreal Tournament 2003, has been moved to February 2004. The game was previously slated for release during the 2003 Holiday season.

After 5 months of working on this great pack, the CBP team is proud to announce the arrival of CBP2003 map-pack (with approval from Epic Games ). A few of the Unreal community's best level designers got together to release a small pack of their best work to the community. As the time went on, the project grew into something far more significant, with more and more of the best Unreal talent out there joining the team. The map count went from a small handful to a fully-fledged professional-level bonus pack. Read more for download links ...

Atari and Epic Games have announced pricing and packaging details as well as a rebate program for Unreal Tournament 2004, the highly anticipated follow-up to last year's smash hit Unreal Tournament 2003, which has become the standard for competitive multiplayer gaming since it shipped in November 2002. Read more for details ...

Reload, rev up and ride out. The new Tournament is faster, higher and meaner. Land and air based vehicles take combat to a new level; while an arsenal of new weaponry, daunting arenas and battlefields and the challenge of the Assault and Onslaught modes make the gladiator blood sport of the future a brand new experience... Atari now released the system requirements, can your computer handle it? Find out below!

"Unreal Tournament 2004 is the next evolution of the greatest competitive computer game ever created," said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and general manager of Atari's Los Angeles studio. "The addition of new modes, mods and maps as well as the controllable land-, air- and space-based vehicles, means Unreal fans are getting an entirely new experience featuring devastating vehicular combat and wide scale warfare." Check out some new screens ...

VE3D posted up some news (available here) from Epic Games, including links to a GDC video and the $1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal Contest.. Here is a clip:

The video is a direct screen capture of a Matinee sequence we put together to show off what our engine could do circa GDC, 2002. This sequence captured in this video was shown behind closed doors running real-time in the Unreal Engine at our GDC booth in March 2002. It had not been publicly released prior to now. Matinee is a tool for making real-time cinematic sequences within the Unreal Editor. Matinee and other tools you can use to create sequences like this come with the PC version of Unreal Tournament 2003.

The purpose of releasing the video now is to provide a little inspiration for the real-time non-interactive movie (i.e. Machinima) category of the $1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal Contest

You can now sign up on Atari's official beta test web site to test the upcoming free Unreal 2 multiplayer expansion pack. The unreal 2 multiplayer mode is a class-based team game where players fight for control of artifacts and energy using a deadly arsenal of weaponry, vehicles, and defenses. While you are there you can also sign up to beta test the upcoming multiplayer oriented Terminator 3: War of the Machines (thanks HomeLAN).

"Unreal Tournament 2004 is the next evolution of the greatest competitive computer game ever created," said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and general manager of Atari's Los Angeles studio. "The addition of new modes, mods and maps as well as the controllable land-, air- and space-based vehicles, means Unreal fans are getting an entirely new experience featuring devastating vehicular combat and wide scale warfare." Check out the first screens!

Noticed on GameSpyDaily that Epic's Vice President Mark Rein has clarified UT2004's new Assault and Onslaught game modes on the Atari community messageboard. Onslaught is a large scale, team and vehicle based game mode in which players battle for control of huge exterior settings. Assault is an objective/team based game mode in which two teams (attackers and defenders) battle each other in epic (and sometimes historical) battles taking place in the Unreal universe. If you are interested in more, check out the forum post.

Atari is bringing Unreal II: The Awakening to the Xbox this Holiday season. Unreal II: The Awakening is the follow-up to Epic Games’ 1998 smash PC hit, Unreal. The Xbox version of the game will include console specific enhancements and exclusive multiplayer modes playable on Xbox Live. Read more for details ...

Noticed on HomeLan that Epic Games' Mark Rein made a post on the official Unreal 2 bulletin board announcing that they are working on a free multiplayer add-on for Unreal 2 (which previously had NO multiplayer capabilities). The message read as follows : Lack of multiplayer is a temporary issue with Unreal2. Legend are currently reviving their XMP design for mulitplayer and it will be released as a FREE downloadable add-on for people who own Unreal2.

After some investigative work Gamespot has noticed that online retailers EBGames and GameStop have both updated their sites with listings for an Xbox version of Legend Entertainment's first-person shooter Unreal II, which was originally released on the PC earlier this year. While EBGames has no additional info, the GameStop listing features some info and a boxshot. Gamespot contacted an Atari representative for comment and they said that no official announcements have been made about Unreal II for the Xbox. To be continued...

Epic Games and Digital Extremes, co-creators of the award-winning Unreal game franchise, along with NVIDIA Corporation, Atari Inc, AMD, and Alias Wavefront today announced the kickoff of the "$1,000,000 NVIDIA Make Something Unreal" contest. The contest, backed by a grand prize worth US $400,000 and one of the largest overall contest prize purses in the video game industry, rewards and publicly recognizes talented individuals from around the world who can create the ultimate game and entertainment mods (a new game or add-on created with tools from the original title) based on the best-selling Unreal Tournament 2003 and upcoming Unreal Tournament 2004.

"Unreal Tournament 2004 is the next evolution of the greatest competitive computer game ever created," said Jean-Philippe Agati, senior vice president and general manager of Atari's Los Angeles studio. "The addition of new modes, mods and maps as well as the controllable land-, air- and space-based vehicles, means Unreal fans are getting an entirely new experience featuring devastating vehicular combat and wide scale warfare." Check out the first screens!

Utilising the technical prowess of the Xbox video game system from Microsoft and Xbox Live!, Digital Extremes, the developers of Unreal Championship in conjunction with Epic Games and Atari have completed the auto-update for the game and is available for download through Xbox Live! today. While new to the console arena, auto-updating has been a mainstay of PC games for many years, and is a requirement to maintain fair and fun online gaming. Online games are extraordinarily more complex than single player titles. Exploits will invariably be found by the hundreds of thousands of gamers playing and sharing ways to gain an advantage in the game. Auto-updates defeat these exploits and balance the playing field against those who would cheat to win.