Unreal Tournament is still saying it’s in pre-alpha, but that doesn’t stop the the mighty masses of competitive gamers wanting to play it for fame, money and Twitch viewership. ESL have taken the call and will be providing a series of tournaments “in the near future” for one and all.
Perhaps a new arena FPS can make it onto the list of best FPS games?
While the pre-alpha tag I’d say is Epic being a bit harsh to their own creation, it is a little rough around the edges but has been playable and fun for a good few months, this is markedly early for a tournament organiser to go all-in on a game. The likes of Overwatch only managed to pull a few tournaments out in its beta phase and there was a lot more excitement around that game than this.
However, with the somewhat sudden meteoric rise of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, ESL are likely betting on the pulling power of another old-school name and competitively-minded FPS being enough to generate some interest. Plus, Epic are doing this right – they’ve had easy to learn and hard to master as their driving forces since day one and have outsourced lots of design and development work to the passionate and dedicated community. Between weekly livestreams and regular public playtests, they’ve been more in-tune with the wants and needs of their people than the norm.
It also one of the best competitive franchises I’ve ever played and my first true love. UT 2004 is an incredible game and what I’ve played of the new UT has shown it to be on the track to even better. If you’re wondering what competitive play looks like, Epic have been putting together best plays of the week regularly with the help of Zaccubus, an ex-pro who will be casting the tournaments. Here’s the latest:
One thing though: Facing Worlds sucks. It is not a good map. Please understand.