Two Of The Best Shooters Of All Time Are Now Free (And More Of The Week's Top Stories)

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This week saw the classic shooters Unreal and Unreal Tournament, with publisher Epic’s blessing, made permanently free and accessible via the Internet Archive. Meanwhile, Blizzard held a stream celebrating the 30th anniversary of Warcraft, at which it revealed that the first two games in the RTS series have been remastered and are now available in a brand-new Battle Chest that also includes Warcraft III Reforged, which just got a 2.0 patch to address many of the lingering issues with the remake. On top of that, World of Warcraft, after 2o years, will finally see the arrival of player housing with its next expansion.

Click on for all the details on these stories and lots more.

An Unreal baddie stands looking annoyed about the blood coming out of his arm.

Epic, now primarily known for Fortnite and the Unreal Engine, has given permission for two of the most significant video games ever made, Unreal and Unreal Tournament, to be freely accessed via the Internet Archive. As spotted by RPS, via ResetEra, the OldUnreal group announced the move on their Discord, along with instructions for how to easily download and play them on modern machines. - John Walker Read More

An image shows an orc and human from Warcraft 2.

Blizzard has announced that the original Warcraft and Warcraft 2, as well as its expansions, are being remastered and re-released as part of a new Battle Chest. This new package also includes Warcraft 3 Reforged, which has received a new update improving its visuals. And all of this is available today. - Zack Zwiezen Read More

Image: GOG

In 2008, when GOG.com was launched, it was called Good Old Games. As Steam was on the rise and digital distribution was clearly to become the future of gaming, a Polish company that had just released its first game—a relatively obscure RPG called The Witcher—wanted to get in on the act. The goal was updating and preserving classic gaming, and selling it without any form of DRM. Over the years, GOG seemed to drift away from this origin, and shift its focus to trying to compete as a distribution platform for AAA gaming, going head-to-head with Valve’s behemoth. But today marks a big change. - John Walker Read More

A head crab zombies shambles toward the player.

Last year, Nvidia announced that a group of talented modders were working on fully remastering Half-Life 2, including adding new textures, models, and ray-traced visuals. And now, a new trailer shows us more of this impressive-looking project that turns Half-Life 2 into a sleek-looking modern FPS. - Zack Zwiezen Read More

A screenshot shows a mug from WoW with Home Sweet Home on it.

Blizzard has announced that two decades after its release, World of Warcraft is finally going to let players build a home and live in it. The feature has long been requested by WoW players and now it’s finally coming in the game’s next expansion. - Zack Zwiezen Read More

An image shows police cars chasing other cars in The Crew.

Two people in California have filed a lawsuit against Ubisoft after the company turned off servers for 2014's The Crew, an open-world racing game released on PS4 and Xbox One, making it impossible to play the game. - Zack Zwiezen Read More

Three images of cosplayers from Dragon Con 2024.

Atlanta’s Dragon Con draws vast crowds to Georgia every year, for the big ol’ mix of all geek culture and celebrity spotting. It also draws in crowds of fantastic cosplayers, and with them, Kotaku’s favorite photographer, Mineralblu. - John Walker Read More

Neil Druckman talks into a microphone at an event.

Fans have been patiently waiting for word of what Naughty Dog’s next big single-player game will be following The Last of Us Part II and multiple remasters. While studio head Neil Druckmann didn’t hint at what that project might be, he reportedly confirmed during a recent roundtable discussion that he’s been working on his next game since 2020. - Ethan Gach Read More

Like a Dragon's protagonist looks concerned.

There’s hardly enough time to play the biggest video game releases of the year, let alone keep up with everything else coming out each month. Every massive open-world RPG or live-service grind means dozens of other games go un-played. The creator of Like A Dragon series, previously called Yakuza, thinks this is part of why game size will no longer be treated as the unconditional virtue it once was. - Ethan Gach Read More

An image shows the mold-like texture in Fortnite.

A confused Fortnite player noticed something while playing the popular free-to-play battle royale shooter and posted a screenshot on Twitter. In the shared image, it looked as if a weird picture of mold had popped up in the game. Why was there mold in Fortnite? Turns out, you can blame Epic CEO Tim Sweeney and a decision he made decades ago. - Zack Zwiezen Read More