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[GreatJustice]

After a long period of silence on the fate of the Unreal franchise, Epic has unveiled their plans for the newest installment in the series. However, they're decided to try something a bit different:

Work on the future of Unreal Tournament begins today, and we’re happy to announce that we’re going to do this together, with you. We know that fans of the game are as passionate about Unreal Tournament as we are. We know that you have great ideas and strong opinions about where the game should go and what it should be. So let’s do something radical and make this game together, in the open, and for all of us.
Here’s the plan:

    We’ve created a small team of UT veterans that are beginning work on the project starting today.
    From the very first line of code, the very first art created and design decision made, development will happen in the open, as a collaboration between Epic, UT fans and UE4 developers. We’ll be using forums for discussion, and Twitch streams for regular updates.
    If you are a fan and you want to participate, create a free account and join the forum discussion.
    All code and content will be available live to UE4 developers on GitHub.
    The game will be true to its roots as a competitive FPS.
    Development will be focused on Windows, Mac and Linux.
    It will take many months until the game is playable by gamers. This is real development from scratch.
    When the game is playable, it will be free. Not free to play, just free.
    We’ll eventually create a marketplace where developers, modders, artists and gamers can give away, buy and sell mods and content. Earnings from the marketplace will be split between the mod/content developer, and Epic.  That’s how we plan to pay for the game.

In short, UT4 will be created through semi-open source collaboration between fans of the series, old developers, and former modders. It will be released for free, but Epic will make money by allowing modders to sell content (with a cut going to Epic), and by using the game as an advertisement for their engine to be licensed out to others, which is basically what they did before. Hopefully it works out, since I heartily approve of free, crowdsourced, easily modded games.

[Itnetlolor]

Toss in collaboration with Oculus Rift (likely featured in UT4), and this would be quite a boon to business. That aside, UT4!!!!

[joemoben]

Hate to necro, but the early free alpha is out. I hear that it's still pretty rough around the edges, being an early alpha and all, but that it is also much more like UT2k4, which should please lots of people who were dissatisfied with UT3.

Edit:Probably should have linked it, here it is.

[Mech#4]

It does look nice and the controls are similar to how they were in Unreal Tournament 1 (I think it's best described as there being less weight behind your actions.) which works well for a fast paced shooter. You know, you jump and the character doesn't have as much camera bob.

There is only one map that's fully textured to the new engine. Though some maps like a remake of classic FaceOff have simple textures.

A few effects make things a little difficult. Distance blur and some of the lighting makes seeing things tricky sometimes.

There's some interesting discussions going on on their forums. I was reading through one topic discussing the HUD and how it should be positioned and coloured. Also things like vehicles are planned along with the match type Onslaught.

[Levi]

I wish I didn't have to register...  Hmm.

Edit:  Registered anyway.   

[Sergarr]

A pretty significant development, I say. If this works out, it might just signal the end of the old "everything is closed/protected/forbidden" paradigm that has spawned countless vile inventions such as DRM and F2P and has killed the potential of many games.

Essentially it's hats from TF2, but with actual game content instead of hats. _{Though I'm about 100% sure that there will be some hat mod in a first few months after this gets out}

[Lord Snow]

I think this is a great idea for UT4.

There is such a focus on realistic egoshooters in the last... almost 10 years by now, that investing into UT4 as a company is probably not very realistic.

[Melanthius]

Just downloaded it and played it, very meh, seems like something you would find in Kongregate. I don't see how this is different from Quake at all.