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Unreal Tournament is a multiplayer-oriented First-Person Shooter developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes and published by GT Interactive set in the Unreal universe and released for PC in 1999, and for PlayStation 2 and Sega Dreamcast in 2001. It is considered a spinoff of Unreal, beginning development as an Expansion Pack before the plethora of changes made to the game's code forcing the development team to go the standalone route.
The game focuses on a tournament (involving both humans and aliens) which started as a way to occupy deep-space miners and eventually grew to become a massive sport event watched by countless spectators. The single-player story was, at best, glorified bot matches to prepare the player for the multiplayer mode, and featured the player choosing a team, a face and a name, and fighting in different arenas with different weapons, different rivals, and in some of these matches with the team he/she has chosen, until he/she reaches the Tournament finals and fights against Xan Kriegor, the Tournament's first and still-current champion.
As for the gameplay-side of things, the game evolves upon the multiplayer model set by Unreal by mostly polishing it. Players fight in enclosed arenas for supremacy with two starting weapons and a plethora of more powerful weapons scattered across the fighting area. The weapon roster was reorganized and polished accordingly, with annoying features of some weaponsnote being gone while also introducing more interesting modes for existing weaponsnote and more punch-packing effects for the weapons making them feel more powerful than their counterparts. In addition, some new weapons were added to the player's arsenal: the Impact Hammernote , the Chainsawnote , the Translocatornote , the Pulse Gunnote and the Redeemernote . On the movement side of things, dodging was polished and the reworked physics allow certain tricks in maps that weren't exploited back in Unreal. The GUI eschewed the console-like interface which Unreal had on release and adopted a Windows-like scheme with menus and dialogues which was so well received, it got ported back to Unreal for both Return to Na Pali and its Gold re-release.
The game features six playable modes, four of which can be found in the aforementioned Single Player mode:
- Deathmatch is the classic free-for-all mode where players pit against each other, with the objective being to outfrag their opponents.
- Team Deathmatch is the team-based version of Deathmatch, and up to four teams battle in order to rack the highest amount of frags. This mode doesn't appear in the SP ladder.
- Domination is a team game where up to four teams (two in the SP) battle in order to take control of several areas of a map; teams gain one point every five seconds for the number of control points under their control.
- Capture the Flag pits two teams in a map where the objective is to steal and capture the enemy flag while preventing the own flag to be taken and captured.
- Assault is a two-round-based gametype which involves two teams, Attack and Defense. The Attacking team (Red) must complete all of the objectives within a set time limit while the defending team (Blue) must prevent this. After the round ends, the teams are switched, and Blue must now attempt to complete the objectives faster than Red did (if Red won their attacking round) or simply complete more than Red did (if Red lost).
- Last Man Standing is a free-for-all gametype where each player has a set amount of lives; but start each life with all weapons available, fully loaded, and must take all lives of their opponents until one remains alive in order to win the match. This mode doesn't appear in the SP ladder.
The game gained lots of critical acclaim, and was considered by many reviewers as a superior game to its most direct rival, Quake III: Arena (although Quake III lasted far longer in the competitive scene). Its success was such that Epic Games decided to entirely focus on the MP side of the franchise for the future.
There are also four official releases as small and free Expansion Packs, called "Bonus Packs". These were done respectively by Epic Games, Digital Extremes, Cedric "Inoxx" Fiorentino (the creator of the map CTF-Face, a.k.a. "Facing Worlds") and by the three of them for Christmas 2000.note
Near the end of 2019, Epic Games granted an NDA to the folks at OldUnreal (the same people behind the community patches for the original Unreal) and the permission to develop community patches for the game. The latest community patch, for version 469d, was released
on December 11, 2023, for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
On December 14th, 2022, Epic Games pulled off from both Steam and GOG.com the digital distribution of the Game of The Year Edition, thus the game, outside of auction sites, can't be bought legally any longer.
Some characters from this game went big for the remainder of the franchise, as the character sheet shows.
Followed by Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Championship.
Game mods with their own pages
Tournament Tropematch. 150 tropes wins the match. Press Fire to start.note
- Abnormal Ammo:
- The GES BioRifle uses tarydium waste.
- The Ripper uses bladed discs.
- Acid Pool: Some levels have the proper acid, while others have acid in all but name:
- Proper acid: CTF-Command, DM-Deck16][, DOM-Gearbolt.
- Pseudo-acid: In AS-Mazon the crystal chamber's water is electrified; CTF-Dreary and Bonus Pack 1's CTF-Hydro16 have virus-infected water; Inoxx Pack's CTF-Kosov, DM-KGalleon, Bonus Pack 4's DOM-Bullet, DOM-MetalDream and Bonus Pack 4's DOM-WolfsBay have water areas (or take place in a prop surrounded with water) which aren't suited for swimming.
- After the End: The game takes place after the Human-Skaarj wars, initiated with Prisoner 849's actions in the first game and its Expansion Pack, which left a devastated Earth, with many rebellions between groups of Earth's survivors. In fact, many of these rebellions led to the creation of the Tournaments. Many of these events are also referenced in the backstories of both maps and AI characters.
- Announcer Chatter: Iconic enough to have carried over to other games such as League of Legends and server-side Counter-Strike mods. He's got a gravelly snarl that sounds like a heavy metal singer.
- Another Side, Another Story:
- The single player campaign in the PC version has most of the regular teams (sans Thunder Crash, the default team) placed in different rungs of the team modes. If another team that isn't Thunder Crash is chosen, Thunder Crash will fill in that team's rungs.
- From OldUnreal's v469a patch onwards in the PC version, beating the game unlocks the ability to play as a member of the Skaarj Hybrid-based Iron Skull or Red Claw teams.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The OldUnreal patch introduced some needed Quality-of-Life features and options such as raw mouse input (and a DirectInput option which uses DI8 instead of UT's old DI3), automatic scaling for crosshair and fonts, new renderers, and widescreen support.
- Arbitrary Weapon Range: The Redeemer is a mini nuke, which means it requires a certain distance between player and target in order for said nuke NOT to become a self-kill.
- Armor Meter: Depending on version:
- The PC version has, in the top-right corner of the HUD, a human-shaped figure showing which kinds of armor you're holding. (And if you're using jump boots, it also displays it).
- The console versions represent armor with a meter.
- Armor Points: The PC version shows, in the top-right corner of the HUD, an icon and number representing armor.
- Arrow Cam:
- The Redeemer's secondary fire allows you to take control of the missile, and guide it around until it explodes. You are left vulnerable, since you can't see what's happening around you in this mode, though.
- Being gibbed at any point leads the player to a "head bouncing around-cam" shot.
- Artificial Brilliance: Bots generally have a sense when a Damage Amplifier or other good powerup is available, can call movers and platforms at will (something the player can't), and allied bot ordered to assist you can always track you down to pinpoint accuracy.
- The exact capabilities per difficulty levels are listed here
. While low-level bots are heavily handicapped, high-level bots are literally playing with a wallhack, have lightning-fast reflexes and accuracy and are Crosshair Aware.
- In 0 player mode (all bots), players and mapmakers could watch how the bots acted on the pathnodes. When a bot approaches a blind corner or intersection, it'll hunch over suspiciously and walk slowly, with more defensive awareness.
- The exact capabilities per difficulty levels are listed here
- Artificial Gill: The SCUBA Gear from Unreal reappears in the map AS-OceanFloor.
- Artificial Stupidity: In spite of their brilliance, sometimes they don't have such good behaviour. Some examples:
- Bots can't guide the Redeemer missile on the off chance they even locate the launcher in the first place.
- In the map DOM-Osiris, from the console versions, the bots won't ever reach the Bridge point. So it becomes easy to win a match against them by taking this point and focusing on fighting for the others as well.
- Despite how well they seemingly navigate maps, bots are actually blind to anything except enemies and only find their way around the map with a pre-placed pathnode network. If a pickup item is not connected to the network, bots won't even try picking it up even if it's lying on the floor in plain sight. Bots also cannot use jump boots, translocators or even elevators to navigate elevations without the mapper explicitly placing the proper entry/exit nodes.
- Artificial Limbs: Nikolai and Gorn from the Dark Phalanx team.
- A-Team Firing: Low-level bots behave like this. Don't try it yourself, or you'll get murdered.
- Attract Mode: In the console versions, though you see the action from a camera, and not from someone's POV.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- The Ripper, continuing the trend from Unreal's Razorjack - easily dodged and with pitiful damage on non-headshot hits, despite being a buzzsaw launcher. In spite of its upgraded Secondary Fire, it keeps the same problems.
- The Redeemer. As the Superweapon of the game, it can rack a lot of kills if fired in the right place. More often than not, however, the player might end up in the explosion radius and kill himself, if the opponents don't just dodge out of the way... or shoot the rocket down. It's blast radius is so massive, however, that one strategy was on some maps to have it come from below and blast the floor, killing everyone above.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Several of the maps take place in outer space. The maps are all low-grav, but missteps are usually punished with death:
- CTF-Face and its derivatives (Inoxx Pack's CTF-Face][ and Bonus Pack 4's CTF-Face-SE) take place in an asteroid with two towers.
- DM-Barricade takes place in an asteroid with a castle embedded on it. The castle has several "dead ends" where the usual final wall is just an exit to outer space.
- DM-Hyperblast lets you go outside of the ship during its transit. The map's description describes this as a result of "magnetic anti-vacuum resonance" technology allowing for extended stays outside a ship.
- DM-Morpheus takes place atop three very high skyscrapers which reach all the way to outer space.
- DM-Phobos takes place in a satellite surrounding the planet Mars.
- DM-Pyramid takes place on a floating three-tiered, well, pyramid.
- DM-SpaceNoxx from the Inoxx Pack takes place in a floating platform.
- Beam Spam: Any Instagib match with many players.
- BFG: The Redeemer.
- Blatant Item Placement: Ammo near weapons. Weapons in unlikely places. Powerful weapons, typically rocket launchers, in pretty much unrisky zones. You are, of course, fighting in an arena.
- Blood Sport: A series of legalized leagues and bloody public exhibitions where the only way to win is to kill your opponents in different ways.
- Bond One-Liner: Taunts... for the most part.
- Book Ends: Your character fights 1on1 battles at the beginning (DM-Oblivion) and the end (DM-HyperBlast) in Cool Starships. The first fight is aboard a ship transporting newcomers, the second is the Final Boss's own ship.
- Boom, Headshot!: Despite that the first Unreal game already allowed the player to nail headshots with the Rifle, this is the game which introduced the Headshot announcement. This later carried on to many games.
- Boss Rush: The console version's Challenge ladder pits you against four bosses in four different matches in consecutive order.
- Bowdlerize:
- The PS2 port changes "Die, bitch!" to merely, "Die!".
- The PC version allows mature taunts to be disabled.
- Capture the Flag: The other Trope Codifier.
- Chainsaw Good: With a Shout-Out to Doom.
- Same goes for the Ripper in the same game. The secondary fire launched an explosive saw disc. Insta-kill for both modes if you aimed for the neck.
- Character Customization: Divided into models (the overall shape of your character, divided by default into two variations for male and female humans plus others like Xan and the Skaarj hybrids), skins (the actual appearance, depending on the model), individual faces for each skin, and voices (which are only limited based on gender).
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Several characters were only mentioned in this game, the most notorious ones are Jerl Liandri (billionaire creator of the Tournament and owner of Liandri Mining Corp.) and Jihan Nyhn (weapons smuggler who owned the Iron Guard team before his assassination). Others such as Tournament Master Kilbragh (owner of the Cryptic domination arena) and Flabeline Xion (an artist who was murdered by Fuego, her then-bodyguard) are mentioned only in this game as well.
- Combos: Double Kill. Multi Kill! ULTRA KILL!! '''M-M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL!!!'
- Company Cameo: The ceiling of each flag base on the map CTF-Orbital, from the GOTY edition and the DE Bonus Pack, has the logo of Digital Extremes.
- Competitive Multiplayer: It even has everything for all the flavors, some depending of the game.
- Continuity Nod:
- The team logos are references to Unreal. The blue team one is the Vortex Rikers logo, a lightning bolt with three bars, the green team one (also the model for the Damage Amplifier) is the Skaarj Razik, and the yellow team one is the Mercenaries logo.
- The levels DM-Deck16][, DM-Curse][, DM-Morbias][, DM-HealPod][, DM-Mojo][, DM-Cybrosis][ and DM-Shrapnel][ were taken (and modified) from Unreal and its Fusion Mappack.
- The description for Luthienne, one of the Ladder's bots, has a reference to the ISV-Kran from Unreal:
"Having survived the Wreck of the ISV-Kran, Luthienne was forced to watch all her friends and crewmates die at the hands of the Skaarj until she and 3 others were rescued two years later. Irreparably scarred by her experience, she has entered the Tournament to confront her inner demons and ultimately to silence them through her own death." - Convection, Schmonvection: Many maps such as DM-Codex, CTF-Gauntlet, DM-Mojo][, DOM-Cinder and DOM-Leadworks feature lava areas which are easily escapable. You won't suffer any damage from standing near to it, but as soon as you so much as dip your toe into it you get violently gibbed.
- Conveyor Belt o' Doom: The aptly named DM-Conveyor has a conveyor belt traversing most of the lower level up to an elevation towards the middle level.
- Cool Boat:
- DM-KGalleon, with the K standing for "Koos". An older galleon complete with a captain chamber and lower decks, where it's also possible to reach the crow's nest for a powerful goodie.
- You must take control of one in AS-Frigate.
- DOM-WolfsBay is a cool hoverboat.
- Cool Starship: DM-Oblivion and DM-HyperBlast take place in two spaceships; the former completely on the inside, and the latter with the possibility of fighting outside.
- Cool Train: AS-HiSpeed has the attacking team fighting for the control of one.
- Crate Expectations: You can find some goodies by getting near some crates in DM-Stalwart.
- Creator Cameo: The map DM-Codex has a secret room with a photo of the level designer behind it.
- Death Is Cheap: In-universe, molecular regeneration explains respawning, even from being gibbed.
- Death Is Not Permanent: It's a (simulated) deathmatch tournament after all. You can respawn within seconds of being fragged.
- Destructible Projectiles: Redeemer missiles can be shot down by enemy fire, and will detonate immediately.
- Developer's Foresight:
- Maps with flaming torches will cause damage if any player stand on top of them.
- Found a quicker way to enter the ship in AS-Frigate by using an impact jump in a certain area to reach the ship's dock and going all the way back? Well, there's another minigun cannon waiting for you.
- Trying to teleport out of the map in DOM-Olden? You'll get teleported back to that specific area.
- Trying to assault the enemy base in CTF-High by entering from the upper tower? At each side of said towers, there are two Minigun Cannons.
- Dynamic Difficulty: There's an option to make the AI dynamically change its set difficulty, depending on how well the player is playing. It is designed around a 1:1 kill ratio between the player and bot, and thus gets thrown off with chokepoints that often kill those walking through.
- Early Game Hell:
- Due to the Deathmatch ladder disabling the "Weapons Stay" option, DM-Stalwart falls into this. You're faced with two enemies who will control the items on the level and force you to be quick.
- The first rungs of the Capture the Flag ladder puts you in a single-way map, a very open map with snipers being a constant danger, and an asymmetrical map where your team gets every disadvantage while the enemy team gets it easy.
- Easter Eggs:
- There's a small room in DM-Codex, opened by hitting a wall-lamp, which shows a picture of its creator, Cliff Bleszinski.
- Firing a Redeemer missile or a Flak shell with the playersonly cheat allows you to see both a message and a face, respectively, drawn on them.
- The maps DM-Mojo][ and DM-Shrapnel][ have the UT logo hidden in some parts.
- Easy-Mode Mockery:
- The PC version has mocking messages for the easiest difficulty setting in the Practice Session menu.
"They won't hurt you... much."- In the console versions, a crying child's face represents the easiest difficulty.
- Elaborate Underground Base:
- The Assault map AS-OceanFloor is an underwater base.
- AS-Overlord has a base built into a mountain.
- Emergency Weapon:
- The Impact Hammer is the default melee weapon. When even the Enforcer lacks bullets, this is the weapon the players are forced to use. Primary fire is a hammer impact that can be charged in order to inflict more damage. Secondary fire is an Attack Reflector and deviator which also inflicts damage.
- Matches played with the "Chainsaw Melee" mutator replaces the Hammer with the Chainsaw, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Primary fire loads the Chainsaw upon anybody on the front, while secondary does an horizontal swing guaranteed to behead anybody in front of you.
- Energy Ball: Shock rifle's secondary fire and pulse gun's primary fire shoots out balls of energy.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Guess what the One-Hit Kill Instagib mode does?
- Explosive Decompression: DM-Pressure features a pressure chamber with a rocket launcher and ammo for it inside. If anyone going for it isn't observant or fast enough, someone else can activate it from outside to lock them in and watch them explode through a window.
- First-Person Dying Perspective: If the "full gore" blood option is set, all of the player's deaths during matches are seen from the player's POV.
- Players being gibbed or headshotted see how their head bounces through the different surfaces.
- Some maps feature death pits (i.e. the bottom of the mountain in DM-Peak) or high-pressure zones (i.e. the pressurization chamber in DM-Pressure). Players falling or caught into them see their vision slowly obscured in a certain color (usually white, though DM-Peak features cyan-colored effect) and a zoomed out FOV effect. Then we see the player's remains in third person and the scoreboard.
- Floating Continent: Multiple floating islands and asteroids which you actually get to fight on, such as DM-Barricade and the various versions of CTF-Face.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The smiley-face on the front of the Flak Cannon's projectile. The "playersonly" Time Stands Still cheat code is the easiest way to see it.
- Fun with Acronyms:
- Many meanings were suggested for ASMD, such as "Atomic Shock Matter Disruptor".
Word of God eventually confirmed that it simply stood for "And Suck My Dick".
- Similarly, the GES in the Bio Rifle name stands for "Green Exploding Shit".
- Many meanings were suggested for ASMD, such as "Atomic Shock Matter Disruptor".
- Gaiden Game: Towards Unreal. The closest thing to a single-player campaign is the Ladder.
- Game-Breaking Bug:
- Due to the way the Unreal Engine 1 works, input lag in modern PCs due to the game not being able to properly handle multi core CPUs practically renders the game unplayable, unless a custom driver is installed. Some custom renderers such as Chris Dohnal's OpenGL driver alleviate this issue by introducing measures such as a framerate limiter.
- The official map CTF-EpicBoy is known to cause crashes with certain renderers due to having two internal files called "Screenshot", which is a Logic Bomb for the engine.
- Due to widescreen
not being a thing at its time, weapon display could end up occupying most of the screen
◊, in some cases covering even the HUD, with the worst offender being the Redeemer, which occupies almost the entirety of it
◊.
- Game Mod: Several, the most famous of which is Oldskool, which lets you play the first Unreal in single-player, with a better and more customizable graphical engine and a few small touch-ups to gameplay such as giving the Automag a separate reload function. Loads of custom campaigns and maps were made for this one.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- The Redeemer's description claims that it's exhausted after just one shot, but if you're patient and/or lucky, you can grab a second missile for it without having to launch the first one beforehand.
- The manual claims the Pulse Gun's magazine only holds 50 rounds at a time and has to be replaced, but in-game you can just fire away as long as you have ammo.
- Gangsta Style: The Enforcer's alternative fire, much like the preceeding Automag. For double coolness points, this game lets you do it with two Enforcers at once.
- Gateless Ghetto: The intro sequence features one. There's also the maps DOM-Condemned and DOM-CiDom which take place in abandoned areas as well.
- Gatling Good: The minigun and pulse gun.
- The Government: The New Earth Government.
- Green Rocks: Blue glowing crystals (tarydium) that pretty much everyone uses as a power source. Similar to Real Life nuclear power, in that it produces dangerous waste material when used for such a purpose. Unlike nuclear power, said waste is then used as ammo for the Bio Rifle.
- Grimy Water: Several stages have pools with different water colors, often not good for your health.
- "Have a Nice Day" Smile:
- As a consolation for unfortunate recipients of live flak cannon grenade rounds, the front end of each grenade is adorned with one of these.
- Although non-canon, the Game of The Year Edition contained a mod known as ChaosUT on the second disk. This mod has an Action Bomb with a smiling face that chases enemies.
- Have a Nice Death: "W was X'd by Y's Z."note There are also unique messages for deaths from things like falling too far, falling into lava or deep space, drowning, trying to rocket/hammer jump with too few hit points, and so on.
- Hazardous Water: Featured with at least an attempt at an explanation in CTF-Hydro16 (its description states that a virus plagued the installation and killed everyone there, possibly also contaminating the water) and DOM-MetalDream ("located near strange meteorological phenomenon", and the water looks similar to that of Hydro16), and without any explanation in CTF-Kosov, DM-KGalleon, and DOM-WolfsBay (solely for gameplay purposes, since both take place on ships where there's no way to get back onto them if you fall off).
- High-Altitude Battle:
- CTF-High, DM-Crane and DM-Morpheus take place atop of high city buildings.
- DM-Peak takes place in a temple atop of a high mountain.
- DM-Barricade, DM-Phobos, DM-Pyramid and DM-SpaceNoxx take place on orbiting structures.
- DM-HyperBlast takes place in a travelling ship.
- Hold the Line: The Assault gametype consists on a pair of rounds where the teams take the roles of assault and defense. The first round starts with the Red team attacking and the Blue team defending, while the second round invert the roles. Should the Red team succeed in attacking, the Blue team has to succeed in a shorter amount of time to win. Should the Blue team succeed in defending, they must accomplish more objectives than their Red foes did in the first round in order to win.
- Home Stage: DM-Hyperblast takes place in Xan Kriegor's spaceship, and Xan is unlocked as a playable character after beating the level in the game's single-player mode. Xan is also mentioned as the owner of the stages DM-Tempest and AS-Rook, but is never fought there.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels:
- The PC version has subtitles to describe the difficulty settings for practice session bots.
- "Novice": They won't hurt you... much
- "Average": They know how to kill
- "Experienced": Don't get cocky
- "Skilled": You think you're tough?
- "Adept": You'd better be good
- "Masterful": I hope you like to respawn
- "Inhuman": You are already dead
- "Godlike": I am the Alpha and the Omega
- The PS2 version cut out the subtitles in favor of a mugshot of a contestant.
- "Novice": The man is depicted as a weeping child.
- "Skilled": The man is fully-grown now, but he's still clearly worried.
- "Master": The man is more fully-featured, and is sporting a smug expression.
- "Inhuman": The man now sports several scars and wrinkles, teeth gritted as electricity shoots from his eyes.
- The PC version has subtitles to describe the difficulty settings for practice session bots.
- I Shall Taunt You: The first major game to have bots actively troll and mock players after scoring a frag. The player could counter this by activating 'Auto Taunt' option, which would allow their character to also mock the bots (and human players) after scoring a frag.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: On higher difficulties this is an Enforced Trope, as bots increase their accuracy to 100% or near, depending on their individual settings.
- Improvised Weapon: The Impact Hammer and Pulse Gun are mining tools (pneumatic drill and cutting torch respectively), while the Bio-Rifle uses waste material produced from Tarydium crystals.
- Instant-Win Condition: The Assault gamemode consists of two phases: in the first round, the Red team assumes the attacking role, and the Blue team the defending role. After the first phase ends (either by objective completion or time running out), both teams switch roles, with the Blue team attacking and the Red team defending. In this round, the Blue team wins if they complete more objectives than the Red team did in the first phase, in case the first phase ended with the Red team not managing to complete every objective, regardless of time left for the objectives to be completed.
- Invisible Wall: You'll find these pretty much in any open level in any of the games, if it doesn't kill you.
- Large-Ham Announcer: Your gaming experience isn't complete without a booming voice yelling "M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL!".
- Lava Pit: Some of the levels feature an inescapable lava pit such as CTF-EternalCave and the Epic Bonus Pack's DM-Mojo][.
- Lethal Lava Land: CTF-LavaGiant."This volatile world has an extremely low orbit around a superdense gas giant. The resulting gravitational forces have caused the planetary mantle to collapse. Combatants are issued special gravbelts for each match."
- Level Editor: The retail game came with the same one as Unreal, UnrealEd 1.0. Patches from 425 onwards, and the GOTY edition, comes with UnrealEd 2.0. The OldUnreal patch v469a upgraded it to their improved version of Unreal's 2.2.
- Lightning Gun: The Pulse Gun has an alternate fire mode that releases a plasma stream up to 100 meters.
- Marked Bullet:
- Flak shells have a smile face painted on the front, but require a high texture resolution to see.
- The Redeemer has Adios! written on the side.
- MegaCorp: Liandri and Phayder.
- Mêlée à Trois: The gametypes Domination and Team Deathmatch allowed battles of 3 and 4 teams.
- Mineral MacGuffin: The map AS-Mazon, where the objective of the attacking team is to destroy a big crystal which empowers the defenders' defenses.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: The game was originally intended as a multiplayer-focused Expansion Pack for Unreal, but with how much content they ended up creating for it, up to and including improvements to the engine itself, the developers split it into an entirely new game. Remnants of this are seen in the files, which include all of the assets from Unreal except for the maps and the music - weapons, items and even enemies all still have their models, textures, sounds, animations and coding, and can be freely used by spawning them in from the console or plopping them into a custom map.
- More Dakka: The minigun.
- Newbie Immunity: The tutorials disallow you from dying. You may still lose the team-based matches, but you won't be locked out of the respective Ladder, as the first proper match and the tutorial are unlocked as soon as you unlock a Ladder.
- No Campaign for the Wicked:
- Official characters not belonging to the Male/Female Soldier or Male/Female Commando classes cannot be selected in the Ladder.
- Inside of the accepted models, only the skins belonging to certain teams can be chosen, meaning players can't play as Metal Guards nor War Machines for the Male/Female Soldier Class and no Aphex for the Female Commando class.
- No One Could Survive That!: The 'feign death' function can at times be incredibly useful if used correctly.
- No OSHA Compliance: Lampshaded in many of the stages: it's stated Liandri confiscated the factories involved due to unsafe working conditions, and then turned the facilities into arenas. It's noted in the description for DM-Fractal that "real life" venues of this nature tend to be more popular with spectators than purpose-built arenas.
- One-Hit Kill:
- No matter how much health, armor, or shield you have, get shot by a fully charged Bio goop, a well-placed Shock Combo with Double Damage/Damage Amplifier, a full pack of 6 rockets, or the Redeemer, and you're gone for good.
- Instagib mode only has one weapon, a special red Shock Rifle, that instantly gibs enemies with one hit.note
- Player Elimination: Last Man Standing, a single-round mode where all players get a life and they battle to be the last one on foot.
- Playing Possum: The game allows the player to feign death.
- Playing Tennis with the Boss: The Impact Hammer can reflect rockets.
- Prison Level: One of the Assault maps, AS-Rook, takes place in a castle where the attackers are left captive. Their objective is, obviously, to escape from it. The lore of the game says that the castle belongs to the game's Final Boss, Xan Kriegor, and the prisoners are there to "help him train".
- Quad Damage: The Damage Amplifier.
- Refuge in Audacity: The overall shape of CTF-Command resembles a dick.
- Remixed Level: All the returning levels from Unreal were updated visually, and in some cases they gained either new rooms or had their weapon/item placement shuffled as well.
- The base game came with remixed versions of DmCurse (as DM-Curse][), DmDeck16 (as DM-Deck16][) and DmMorbias (as DM-Morbias][). In addition, the game's DM-Stalwart has a remixed version with a new room called DM-StalwartXL.
- The Epic Bonus Pack came with remixed versions of DM-Cybrosis (as DM-Cybrosis][), DmHealPod (as DM-HealPod][), DM-Mojo (as DM-Mojo][) and DM-Shrapnel (as DM-Shrapnel][), plus a CTF version of DM-Cybrosis][ as CTF-Cybrosis][.
- The Inoxx Pack came with a remixed version of the base game's CTF-Face as CTF-Face][.
- The Christmas 2000 Bonus Pack came with another remixed version of CTF-Face as CTF-Face-SE, and a remixed version of the base game's DOM-Lament as DOM-Lament][.
- The Dreamcast version of the game has Deathmatch versions of the arenas of the Rocket Arena mod's RA-Akuma (as DM-Babylon, DM-ColdSteelPressure, DM-NeoTokyo, DM-Sector9 and DM-Underlord, in addition to the base game's DM-Codex), RA-CliffyB (DM-Dust, DM-GearBox, DM-Girder, DM-Google and DM-Paladin, in addition to the base game's DM-Tempest) and RA-Inoxx (DM-BlockParty, DM-Megaplex, DM-Singularity and DM-StationControl in addition to the base game's DM-Morbias][).
- Riddled and Rattled:
- Doable with the Twin Enforcer Pistols weapon. Models won't ragdoll until the player stops shooting them.
- Whenever someone's fragged by a Minigun wielder, the death animation that plays has the fragged character twitching before falling to the floor, with the weapon they were holding being dropped before they fall.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: The Liandri Mining Corporation. Just look at any description on any game starting with this one which mentions them. Hell, they even were one of the main forces behind the Tournament itself!
- Sentry Gun: Some assault game mode maps such as AS-HiSpeed have turrets that automatically aim at the attacking players.
- Set Swords to "Stun": An automag bullet in the brain? No problem, it hurts a bit, but it only takes away 25 HP. Shock Rifle blast to the face? More dangerous, you lose 50 HP. There are however weapons that can insta-kill in certain circumstances, such as the Flak Cannon from close range, a direct hit from the Rocket Launcher, or a head/neckshot with the Sniper Rifle/Ripper.
- Sighted Guns Are Low-Tech: Only two guns have visible iron sights, the Enforcer and the Sniper Rifle. Both are low-tech ballistic hardware in a world of energy weapons.
- Single Player Gauntlet: The single player portion of the game has four Gauntlets for the Deathmatch, Domination, Capture The Flag and Assault gamemodes. Beating three matches of a Gauntlet unlocks the next Gauntlet in sequential order. Beating all these Gauntlets unlock the four-rung Final Challenge.
- Small Role, Big Impact: FenTech Incorporated. Their small role? They were only mentioned in this game, and in only two separate bios from two players from separate teams who were created by them. Their big impact? One of said players is Malcolm, a chemical killer who went on to lead Thunder Crash, dethrone corrupt champion Xan Kriegor and dominate the Liandri Grand Tournament for almost a decade. And that's just In-Universe, as Malcolm also became the Series Mascot.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Perhaps done intentionally, but the award goes to Thunder Crash. (A.K.A. "Thunder Cash") They are the first squad you're shown while starting a new ladder, if you select another team, they take their place in the ladder, they are the only full team to return intact in Unreal Tournament 2004, (Iron Guard and Iron Skull came reformed, as well as the Guards and the Necris Black Legion in UT3) and, well... we all know what happened to their leader, Malcolm.
- Standard FPS Guns: Averted. Most of the weaponry has a different feel to it, and one of the main selling points is that its weapons invariably have a Secondary Fire.
- The Impact Hammer is the melee weapon, in the form of a pneumatic piston. The primary fire charges the piston. The alternative fire is an Attack Reflector.
- The Chainsaw replaces the Impact Hammer in the Chainsaw Melee mutator. The alternate fire decapitates opponents.
- The Translocator, available in non-Deathmatch modes like Domination and Assault. Not really a weapon (barring the ability to Tele-Frag) but quite useful. The primary fire shoots a beacon, and from there primary fire retrieves it and alternate fire teleports you to it. Opponents can shoot the beacon and make it malfunction – you can't retrieve it with primary fire and will Tele-Frag yourself if you try to teleport with it. The only way to fix it is to walk over the beacon to pick it up.
- The Enforcer is a hitscan automatic pistol. Players start with only one, but they can dual-wield them if they claim one from a foe's corpse. The alternative fire is a Gangsta Style fire, raising fire rate at the cost of accuracy. Shares ammo with the Minigun.
- The GES Bio Rifle shoots radioactive green glop in a parabolic arc. Primary fire flings a single ball; secondary fire charges up to eight balls together into a giant cluster mine. The glop hangs around for a bit on whatever surface it hits, doing damage to whatever touches it, and then explodes, doing damage to anything near it.
- The ASMD Shock Rifle's primary fire produces a moderately powerful hitscan laser beam with a lot of knockback, with secondary fire sending off a fairly weak and painfully slow Energy Ball. The weapon's true power lies in the fact the energy ball explodes if shot with the primary fire beam, doing massive damage at the cost of extra ammo.
- The Pulse Gun is the assault rifle analogue, shooting fast-moving (but not hitscan) energy balls. The alternate mode is a short-range Lightning Gun.
- The Ripper shoots sawblades which can ricochet off walls and around corners. The alternative fire shoots exploding, though non-ricocheting, sawblades. Headshots (or hits to the neck area) deal extra damage and decapitate on kill.
- The Minigun is a typical machine gun. Altfire makes it go twice as fast, but at the cost of accuracy. Shares ammo pool with the Enforcer(s).
- The Flak Cannon is a shotgun on steroids: primary fire shoots a load of shrapnel that bounces off solid surfaces. The alternative fire lobs the shell instead of firing it; the shell explodes upon impact with an object or surface, showering anything nearby with shrapnel.
- The Rocket Launcher can shoot between one and six rockets at a time, in either a horizontal pattern or a tight cluster if you hold altfire while charging it up. The alternative fire lobs them as bouncy grenades instead.
- The Sniper Rifle is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The alternative fire toggles in and out of using the scope. Headshots are instant kills for unarmored enemies, and the helmet pickup specifically renders you immune to one headshot.
- And finally, the Redeemer is the tactical mini-nuke. Primary fire launches it as a straight-flying rocket; alternative fire is a Player-Guided Missile, where you can hit primary fire to detonate it without having to hit a surface or player.
- Stat Overflow:
- The game features a rare, usually well-hidden item which gives the player 100 hitpoints called Big Keg O'Health that surpasses the standard cap of 100. The player, however, won't be able to pick up other healing items until their life meter drops below 100.
- Health Vials can overheal at a rate of 5HP.
- Storming the Castle: The Assault levels require you to do this, due to the nature of the game. Inverted in one of the maps (AS-Rook) which takes place in a castle, and where the objective is to escape. Done literally in AS-Mazon, where the objective is to infiltrate a castle in order to blow up a crystal.
- Strategic Asset Capture Mechanic: Domination is a team-based gamemode for up to 4 teams which takes place in maps with indicators initially marked with a big X that display which team controls which points. Once a team takes control of a point, it'll display the logo of said team. Other than points, taking these points grant no extra beenfits.
- Swiss-Army Weapon: With their alternate firing modes, almost every weapon is one of these. Special mention goes to the Shock Rifle and the Rocket Launcher, each of which has more than two ways of killing opponents.
- Teleportation: Achieved by way of plasma teleporters scattered through the maps* , and the Translocator item in games where it's enabled. In both cases, opponents standing in range of the teleportation exit become giblets.
- Teleportation with Drawbacks: The only drawback to the translocater was the beacon being damaged. Teleportation with that device was still unrestricted until the sequel.
- Teleporter Accident: In addition to Tele Frags, if you damage someone's Translocator beacon, they'll die instantly if they try to teleport to it.
- There Can Be Only One: Last Man Standing.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Redeemer being a personal, portable, potentially remote-guided tactical nuclear missile. In addition, it has a very large area effect.
- Train Job: AS-HiSpeed is about taking control of a moving train.
- Training Dummy: The Deathmatch Tutorial level features a Nali from Unreal during the demonstration of how the Impact Hammer works. The tutorial instructor outright tells you to charge the weapon and hit him with it, even gushing about how the Ludicrous Gibs fly.
- Travel to Projectile: The Translocator launches a beacon (with primary fire) that teleports the player on command (with alternate fire), but it may also be damaged by the enemy. Said module can be retrieved too, by using the primary fire after launching it.
- Trope Codifier: The game didn't invent the announcer announcing everything in an overblown way and the Instagib and Capture the Flag modes, among other things, but it did make them popular.
- Uncommon Time: Track "Colossus" has 7/8 time signature.
- Universal Ammunition: The Enforcer and Minigun share ammo.
- Unlockable Content:
- In the PC version, Xan. After v469, the Skaarj Hybrids can be unlocked for ladder play.
- In the PS2 version, the ladder maps and nine characters.
- In the DC version, the ladder maps.
- Updated Re-release:
- Game of The Year Edition: This included three bonus packs, the S3 Compressed Textures, and the mods ChaosUT and Rocket Arena.
- The PS2/DC editions included most of the Bonus Packs' stuff, plus original content.
- It should be noted that all of the upgrades and features available in the updated releases (sans for some of the exclusive maps of the console versions) are also available as free downloads to the owners of the original game.
- "Congratulations, you're the winner!"