Game Preservationists Post OG Unreal and Unreal Tournament to Internet Archive for Free

The game preservationists at OldUnreal have posted the original versions of Unreal and Unreal Tournament for free online. Even better, Epic Games, which owns these titles but no longer supports them, now says this was done with its explicit permission, so there are no legal concerns.

“We can confirm that Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament are available on archive.org and people are free to independently link to and play these versions,” an Epic Games statement explains, clearing up the confusion.

The OldUnreal team is a group of enthusiasts and volunteers who support older Unreal game titles with patches, mods, new multiplayer levels, and other downloads. The two original Unreal games, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, are now available for download from the Internet Archive, but the OldUnreal team has separately posted installers to their GitHub site. Currently, only Windows is supported, but they are hoping to add Mac and Linux support soon as well.

For those unfamiliar, Unreal (1998) and Unreal Tournament (1999) are first-person shooters that were as influential and groundbreaking in their day as anything Id Software or Valve produced. Unreal was most notable for its stunning singe-player campaign, while Unreal Tournament took multiplayer gaming to new heights with a frenetic speed that’s still impressive today. (Well, that and the announcer yelling out “FIRST BLOOD,” “MULTI-KILL” and similar when deserved.)

This news follows an announcement from GOG about its own GOG Preservation Program, which it says will “ensure classic games remain playable on modern systems, even after their developers stopped supporting them” The company has provided new “preservation” versions of classic games like Diablo, Resident Evil 1, 2, and 3, and almost 100 others that it certifies will work on modern PCs and ship with various improvements.