Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
120 M PS E . O R G I was also glad to be working on a game with Alex, who I admired for years. I hope we all get to work together again at some point. I'm definitely open to it. Unreal Tournament, Quake, Half-Life— these are all legacy games. These are legends that define this genre of gaming. I'm glad I was part of that era of the golden era of gaming. LM: I second that, definitely. PH: One thing that the developers today have is the luxury of hearing their work in context during development. Back then, you wouldn't hear how it works until the game was out, and then it was too late to change anything. So maybe nowadays, you can do more iterations. LM: It doesn't happen with voice work. It still happens the same way as it always does. MVDB: It kind of hurts that the franchise no longer exists. It should be brought back in some fashion. The gameplay from the original is still the best. It's so fast, it's perfect. It doesn't need any improvement, just make it prettier. I'm sure there's a market for it. Just do it—a small team, just pick four people and make the game. I would like it to come back. I would play the shit out of it. I still hop on servers sometimes to play the original game. AB: Yeah, there was going to be a UT that was essentially crowd developed a few years ago. The notion was, "Let's give Unreal Tournament to the masses, start up a community, and have that be a vehicle for the new version of the Unreal Engine. Make it so that any player can do anything." I think Epic was going to have internal people create some levels for it. The notion was to have a core set of example levels, and get the band of the original people back together that worked on the game. It was more of an on-spec situation than a pro development situation, even though the people making the levels were internal. Epic Games has always evolved in different areas. Tim has notions of what the next phase of entertainment in general is. On the fan side, there are so many people that would love a new version of the game. It's just a question of whether somebody says, "Let's go build it for X budget." SD: And I'll do more new sound effects for it if it ever happens. AB: Hell, yeah! LM: Last year, I did an in-store signing with this big reunion, and unless you have merchandise, it doesn't matter. Unreal Tournament is a legend in its own right, but I think if people could put out merchandise for it, it would actually perpetuate the myth. EM: Peter, Lani, Sascha, Alex, Michiel, and Cliff, thank you for coming together to talk about all your inspiring work on this legendary game! Your sound and music in UT absolutely stand the test of time. AB: Really appreciate it. It's like a high school reunion, really good to talk to everyone. LM: Thank you for having us. We really appreciate it. MVDB: Thank you for the questions, this was lovely. Xan stands in victory in Secret Level: Episode 4, Unreal Tournament: Xan From Secret Level: Episode 4, Unreal Tournament: Xan