The Steam page for Unreal Tournament 3, which had been long dormant since the game launched in 2007, saw an unexpected update: The game is now called Unreal Tournament 3 X, and it will be completely free to all players with no in-game purchases.
The description of the game remains largely unchanged from the original 2007 release, with the game offering deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, and other multiplayer modes along with a single-player campaign. The page adds the new client will feature cross-play between players on Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG.com, which means all PC players can connect and play together.
The new listing also reveals that this new free-to-download version of Unreal Tournament III will be the same as it was in 2007–what the page specifically describes as “the fully-featured, award-winning first-person shooter you fell in love with”–but it will not feature microtransactions of any kind.
Unreal Tournament 3 received high praise when it launched in the late 2000s, with GameSpot’s official review calling it “very exciting and just as much fun now as it has been in previous installments [of Unreal Tournament].” No release window has been set for Unreal Tournament 3 X as of this writing.
Unreal Tournament 3 was one of a list of games which will be losing online services in the new year, alongside the original Rock Band trilogy, Dance Central 1-3, and other entries in the Unreal franchise.
