Epic Games are killing off a bunch of classics like Unreal Tournament

Epic Games announced today they're killing off a bunch of classic games removing them from stores and turning off their online services for retro delights like Unreal Tournament.

Why are they doing this? They're consolidating their services directly into their modern all-in-one Epic Online Services, so they don't want anything not using that to stick around that they have to maintain.

Here's the full list of titles being removed from stores (some are already gone like Unreal Tournament), and having their online play turned off on January 24 - 2023:

• 1000 Tiny Claws
• Dance Central 1-3 
  • Note: Dance Central VR online multiplayer will remain available
• Green Day: Rock Band
• Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess
• Rock Band 1-3 
  • Note: Rock Band 4 online multiplayer will remain available
• The Beatles: Rock Band
• Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars
• Unreal Gold
• Unreal II: The Awakening
• Unreal Tournament 2003
• Unreal Tournament 2004
• Unreal Tournament 3
  • Note: We have plans to bring back online features via Epic Online Services in the future.
• Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition

Hopefully the community (like perhaps OldUnreal), will find a way to get online going again for some of the classic Unreal Tournament games. Otherwise, that's a whole lot of FPS history being lost.

For Unreal Tournament 3, it looks like they're re-branding it as Unreal Tournament 3 X and making it free to play, as you can see they already did it on the Steam page and you can see all the changes on SteamDB history but it's not actually live they're just re-purposing the Steam page.

On top of that they also said they're removing Linux and macOS versions of Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star today. No reason given for either.

If you do want to stock up, the old Unreal games are still on GOG but probably won't be for long.