Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1538144
118 M PS E . O R G Impulse Tracker, and I couldn't use that directly. So, I had to recreate the whole song in FL Studio. I used synthesizer plug-ins instead of some samples, but I did use a couple of the old samples, and I ran them through effects so that they wouldn't be immediately recognizable. It was interesting to make a total remake of the song. MVDB: The sample quality of Unreal and UT was absolutely awful. We couldn't make new music sound like that even if we had tried to. But hopefully, we managed to capture the original atmosphere of those songs. It's really difficult as the composer of the original version to determine that. EM: While you were all working on the original game, was there a point at which you realized this game could become a giant hit? MVDB: When I started playing the betas, the way it felt—it was frenetic, the dodges, everything! The gameplay just felt so good. I was immediately like, "Yeah, this is going to be big. If they market this well, this is going to be huge." Back then, there weren't nearly as many games. Now we have thousands of games releasing each month, but back then it was one or two big titles a month, that's it. So, your chances of actually making a splash were pretty big! AB: We knew we were going up against Quake 3 at the time. I think Quake 3 may have come out first, and I remember thinking, "Wow, they've got these smooth curved surfaces." We were all waiting, thinking maybe the next big game is going to have curved surfaces and that's going to be the big tech graphical draw to players. But UT came out and I realized, "Oh, it's fun. There's no denying this game is fun." I didn't know how successful it was going to be, but three or four years after it came out, a seal of approval from some magazine said, "UT has beat Quake" in terms of sales, or maybe in how fun it was. It's not like Quake 3 wasn't good, but it was all about the fun factor, the community, and the sheer amount of features. Players seemed to think that UT had won that battle, and that was huge. Never in a million years would I have dreamt that Unreal and Unreal Engine at the time, as impressive as it was, that there would be this competition with it. If there was, there was a snowball's chance in hell of Unreal or Unreal Tournament coming out on top in any way. That was some info that just blew me away. And I was like, "What? We're a bunch of kids from Rockville!" Actually, it was Rockville primarily where the development happened. And like Cliff said, Canada was where the end of Unreal was worked on, and then everyone came back to Rockville to do UT. But Steve Polge was in North Carolina, and he wasn't moving. So, the company went to him, because so much of what he did created the company's success. He was an important engineer for these projects. He sold Tim on North Carolina, the research triangle and all that. That's what really got that going. Dave Ewing from Epic also did sound design on Unreal and a bunch on UT. But then he became a level designer. EM: Just a few months ago, a show called Secret Level won an MPSE Golden Reel Award for the incredible sound work in the show. What did you all think about the episode that brought Unreal Tournament back to life in a whole new way? PH: I liked it. It had a great sense of humor in it. Dark humor. AB: Yeah. I liked it as well. I liked that there was a nod to the music title theme in the trailer. The actual episode had its own stuff, which worked pretty well. They kind of mimicked Lani's voice in the trailer. That's the one that I shared on Facebook. I was just like, "Oh my gosh, this reminds me of Lani. Why didn't they get Lani?" But why didn't they use any of us, right? That's how it happens all the time. In television and film, it's just like, "We're going to do an all original thing. We're going to take inspiration from the game, but we don't necessarily need to contact or work with you." There are also legal issues that they're thinking about with the original publisher too, I'm sure. LM: There's not enough loyalty. But I just let it roll off. Focus on the next project. AB: Exactly! But I liked the show. EM: After all these years, what do you hope the legacy of Unreal Tournament is 26 years later? MVDB: I'm really happy people still listen to the music we made back then. I still get fan mail sometimes, or emails, or messages on Instagram. They say things like, "Your music has been so important to me." I still can't believe I made music for UT. I was just happy to be a part of it. It still does something for people, which is important. SD: I'm just glad I was part of the game. Even if it was just a tiny little bit. That was a really special time: from about 1997 to 2001. It was a special time for gaming. We had Quake 3, which I also worked on. We had Unreal Tournament and Unreal. Just being part of those games, it doesn't matter what you do later in your career. I will always be the Quake guy. I've done the score for 45 games so far, including for Deus Ex, Mass Effect, Splinter Cell, and Mortal Kombat. Everyone on Discord always asks about Quake. Not many people know about my sound work on Unreal Tournament— which in reality was the sound for just eight weapons! It's a tiny addition to what everybody else did. I was just glad to prove to Cliff that I could do it. Because the meeting with Cliff was kind of uncomfortable at first. I was embarrassed. But he actually did the right thing—instead of saying, "Screw this guy," he said. "Okay, let's see what you got."