Unreal Tournament 2004 is back • Hacker News Board

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#31

Post by K0nserv » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:39 AM UTC

retsibsi wrote: post #29

K0nserv wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.warsow.net/ is good and runs on pretty much everything. Plays like a mix between UT and Quake3.

I love Warsow but am I right that it's very hard to find an opponent these days? I just checked https://arena.sh/wa/ and there are 4 non-empty servers, but most (maybe all) of the players seem to be bots.

I haven't played a while so I cannot comment. When I last played I spun up a server for my friend group to play on. This is the beauty of old school games like these, no need to rely on a company to keep servers running. In a way Warsow is the perfect LAN game: everyone can run it and it's easy to host a server.

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#32

Post by unsungNovelty » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:40 AM UTC

Plaay >>

In the mystique female voice!

I bought it in steam before they removed it. So I can still install and play this game from time to time. Capture the flag is something else in this game!

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#33

Post by amlib » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:41 AM UTC

jack_tripper wrote: post #19

magicalhippo wrote: post #5

One thing I missed from Unreal Tournament, which too few other games adopted IMHO, was the concept of mutators. Effectively server-level mods which, as the name implied, mutated the gameplay in some way. There were silly ones like the one making your characters head larger for each kill, and those which made it just different like low gravity, and so on. It was also relatively easy to make your own, thanks to UnrealS…

Same. My favorite mutator was the exploding ammo cases. So much fun to see an enemy run to pick up an ammo box and just shoot it with a pistol blowing it up in his face. That was apretty revolutionary game mechanic 20 years ago. Do any modern games have such a thing?

That volatile ammo mutator was made even more awesome because it actually spawned "shots" of that type, so a plasma pile wouldn't just explode but rather spread various plasma shots around it. The granade one would have the granades bouncing around a bit before exploding. It was so easy for things to go wrong and backfire on you :)

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#34

Post by armchairhacker » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:48 AM UTC

magicalhippo wrote: post #5

One thing I missed from Unreal Tournament, which too few other games adopted IMHO, was the concept of mutators. Effectively server-level mods which, as the name implied, mutated the gameplay in some way. There were silly ones like the one making your characters head larger for each kill, and those which made it just different like low gravity, and so on. It was also relatively easy to make your own, thanks to UnrealS…

Those are in TF2 and Minecraft, perhaps one reason they’re still popular

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#35

Post by xyzal » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 11:57 AM UTC

I hope they fix the terrible SP campaign. The bot skill became too difficult too fast (if I remember correctly they after several stages also began to dodge your CROSSHAIR), you could not change base difficulty mid-run and the money system was punishing when you lost a match

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#36

Post by xeonmc » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:05 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #6

Are there are any FPS shooters on the genre of UT (or even Quake3) but modern, not remasters? I've been missing a lot the frenetic gameplay of those, used to play a lot of UT at a decent level but nowadays I only see tactical FPSs or the likes of Counter-Strike/Battlefield with a high player count.

Quake Champions?

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#37

Post by yetihehe » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:05 PM UTC

fergie wrote: post #26

Such a good game- very ahead of its time, great look and feel. Weird that it was allowed to wither and die.

> Weird that it was allowed to wither and die.

It was allowed to wither and then murdered in 2022. You can't even buy it now, not even on GOG (you could buy it on GOG previously, but it was removed).

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#38

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:06 PM UTC

lgl wrote: post #30

piva00 wrote: post #6

Are there are any FPS shooters on the genre of UT (or even Quake3) but modern, not remasters? I've been missing a lot the frenetic gameplay of those, used to play a lot of UT at a decent level but nowadays I only see tactical FPSs or the likes of Counter-Strike/Battlefield with a high player count.

Diabotical was heavily inspired by Quakeworld/Quake3/UT arena shooter FPS. https://www.diabotical.com

[deleted]

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#39

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:23 PM UTC

piva00 wrote: post #6

Are there are any FPS shooters on the genre of UT (or even Quake3) but modern, not remasters? I've been missing a lot the frenetic gameplay of those, used to play a lot of UT at a decent level but nowadays I only see tactical FPSs or the likes of Counter-Strike/Battlefield with a high player count.

[deleted]

Re: Unreal Tournament 2004 is back

#40

Post by piltdownman » Thu, Dec 04, 2025, 12:24 PM UTC

magicalhippo wrote: post #5

One thing I missed from Unreal Tournament, which too few other games adopted IMHO, was the concept of mutators. Effectively server-level mods which, as the name implied, mutated the gameplay in some way. There were silly ones like the one making your characters head larger for each kill, and those which made it just different like low gravity, and so on. It was also relatively easy to make your own, thanks to UnrealS…

Mutators are about the only thing keeping Starcraft 2 Co-Op players going in 2025 (and by extension, the community).

Earliest memory I have in the multiplayer FPS context was probably the 'cheat' menu unlocks for Goldeneye on the N64 in 1997.