The new Unreal Tournament looks fantastic.
The design, at least in this map, is clean and well-lit, nothing like the muted, apocalyptic Gears of War series that Epic spent the previous decade developing, before eventually selling to Microsoft.
It's been a few months since Epic made the surprise announcement that the next Unreal Tournament would be a moddable, free-to-play project developed with its players. Even though Epic Games is known for being at the tip of the spear for graphics technology, and even though the studio wants people to refer to the game simply as "free," the business strategy of Unreal Tournament set some fans' expectations to "restrained."
Those fans might be surprised to see the quality of this "playable concept art," revealed and analyzed in a recent video on the official Unreal Tournament YouTube channel.
In the video, Art Director Chris Perna explains that the map is unfinished and the look isn't representative of the entire game. It's fascinating how the video serves both as a reveal of the artist's work and as a guide for the artists who are designing their own maps.
If you'd like to hear more about the game, the "screenshot" and the Unreal engine, be sure to watch the video or follow discussion on this Reddit board, which has already begun picking the meat off this bone.
The more I look at the screen, the more it reminds me of the Aliens films. How about you?
