Unreal

Unreal is the first game in the Unreal series and was the first 3D venture by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The game was approved by GT Interactive in 1996 and released on May 22, 1998 to the world, however by several accounts work on the engine actually started sometime around 1994. Unreal provided a single player experience along with a multiplayer mode that allowed for up to 16 players. It was rated 'M' for Mature by the ESRB for intense violence.

Development
Work on Unreal began in 1994 when James Schmalz, founder of Digital Extremes, showed Cliff Bleszinski a side project he had been working on. At the time, Schmalz was creating all of his own content, and programming the game all by himself. The game had not yet been fully realized, and Schmalz was creating all of his levels on paper.

A short time later, Schmalz showed what he had been working on to Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic MegaGames (later renamed to Epic Games). Tim was impressed and began working on a level editor for Schmalz to use to build his engine. As time went on, many people became involved in the process. Mark Rein was brought in to do PR, Steve Polge was hired to work on the AI. For a time, many of the people working for Epic were doing so remotely.

Originally the game was scheduled to come out in April 1997. A few months after this date slipped, pressure started mounting from GT Interactive to get the project completed. Epic moved all of it's remote employees to Digital Extremes Waterloo, Toronto, Canada offices to complete the final push of the game. Roughly one year later, the game was released and it's detail appalled the game industry, a new age of gaming had arrived.

Demo
A demo was alluded to many times by various people at Epic Games throughout the life of Unreal, however the only demos that were ever released came bundled with various hardware. Many people saw this as a negative to Unreal as there was no real way to try the game before you bought it.

Releases and Formats
The initial release of Unreal was published by GT Interactive and arrived in stores on May 22, 1998.

A full version of Unreal was released with certain S3 Video Cards to show off Unreal's S3TC capabilities. This version came with several S3TC showcase levels that can be found online.

Another version of Unreal was released with certain Creative products to show off Unreal's EAX capabilities.

A re-release of Unreal was done and titled Unreal Gold. This package was released to stores January 21, 2000. Unreal Gold contained the original release of Unreal patched to version 226. It also used the Unreal Tournament UWindows interface. It also included the expansion pack, Return to Na Pali. Many people disliked this release because, while the Direct3D support was better, nearly every other facet of the engine was worse, especially network play.

Unreal Gold was also released with Totally Unreal. This package also contained Unreal Tournament - GOTY as well as an Unreal Championship/Unreal 2 preview disc.

In September 2006, Unreal Gold was re-released for (probably) the last time in the Unreal Anthology pack published by Midway Games. The pack also included Unreal - Return to Na Pali, Unreal Tournament - GOTY, Unreal 2 and UT2004.

Engine
Unreal uses Unreal Engine 1 starting with build 200 and continuing on to finally end at build 226b.

Music
The music in Unreal was written by Alexander Brandon and Michiel van der Bos. The music, for the most part, is designed to complement the eerie and hollow feeling of the game as well as the sense of beauty in many parts of the game.

A.S.M.D.
The A.S.M.D. shoots a beam and a core.

Skaarj
The Skaarj are an alien race who enslaved the Nali on the planet you crash land on, Na Pali.

Nali
The Nali are a race indigenous to Na Pali but subordinate to the Skaarj as they have been enslaved.

Humans
You play as a human prisoner whose prison ship crash landed on a mysterious planet, Na Pali.

Krall
A race of unknown origin that has been enslaved by the Skaarj and act as their guards.