Two early Unreal games are now permanently free via the Internet Archive
Epic Games is said to have rubber stamped the boost for game preservation.
The Internet Archive is one of the very best things on the web, so it's great that the repository is up and running again after recent DDoS attacks. It hosts more than old versions of web pages, though. It hosts a trove of video (I'm forever thankful to whoever uploaded the wonderful Lucha Underground in its entirety), software, text, audio recordings and games as well. There have been two notable additions on the latter front in the form of Unreal and Unreal Tournament, seemingly with the blessing of Epic Games.
You can now freely download disc images of the arena shooters from the Internet Archive via direct links for Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Alternatively, as Game Developer points out, the site OldUnreal offers installers for Unreal and UT, both of which pull the disc images from the Internet Archive and include the latest community-created patches.
The installers are Windows-only for now, but the OldUnreal team is working on Linux and macOS versions. You'll also need to put in a little extra effort to get online with the games and savor their true multiplayer flavors. Heck, you might still even be able to join an Unreal clan.
Epic delisted the Unreal games from Steam and shut down their servers quite some time ago, so this is a nice boost for game preservation. It comes on the heels of GOG introducing a new label for older titles that the platform is maintaining for current hardware. Unreal was one of the first PC games I played as a kid, so it's neat to learn that it will be available in perpetuity through the Internet Archive.
