Epic Games has said that it's okay to offer Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament for free on the Internet Archive.

You may have thought, "I've heard so many good things about Unreal, the classic 1998 shooter, and I'd love to try it but I don't know how to get it anymore." If you answered yes, then I have some good news for you: the Internet Archive has made Unreal Tournament and its multiplayer sequel, Unreal Tournament, free. It has Epic's permission to do so.

The news of the newly-free Unreal Games was first shared on the OldUnreal Discord at the end October, but the news didn't reach a wider audience until it was shared on Resetera. Epic confirmed to PC Gamer that the Internet Archive has been given the greenlight to host the games.

I've always been more of a Quake guy than an Unreal guy. But there's no doubting the importance of these games. Unreal looked unreal but the editor that came with it cemented its place in the history of videogames. Unreal Tournament was even more impressive, with its dramatically improved "Internet Play," as we called it back then--an element in first-person shooters which has proven to be very durable over the years.

It's ironic, then, that Epic's attempts to bring UT back failed so dramatically. Epic announced a new game in 2014 with much fanfare, but the success of Fortnite convinced them to pull the plug.

If UT's future is bleak, its past has been preserved. You can download Unreal and Unreal Tournament by downloading the files directly from the Internet Archive, and then get the patches for current Windows systems via Github. All of this is detailed in detail on the OldUnreal discord. You can also save yourself a lot headaches by downloading the latest installers from oldunreal.com. Here are links to Unreal Gold, and Unreal Tournament.

I tried it and it worked: The text explosion in the DOS window during the installation process was a bit alarming at first, but after a few clicks, I was able to run Unreal Gold without needing to understand what the phrase "mount the disc" meant.

Remember that Unreal and UT were released many years ago, so some oddities are unavoidable. You'll notice that the mouse will be inverted on 4K displays due to the default 640x480 display. This was the style of the time. You can also use the arrow keys to move around. If you want to use WASD, or whatever other Totally Normal Person system that you've created, you'll have to do some key remapping.

It's free and it runs. But perhaps most importantly, it comes at a moment when companies and organizations are determined to stymie attempts to keep old video games accessible and playable. Epic didn't make any money on these games anyway, as they were removed from sale with other old Epic titles a couple of years ago. So there's nothing to lose. Maybe other game makers will follow suit.