Unreal Tournament, despite being in early alpha, is shaping up to be a worthy successor to Unreal Tournament 2004 which is by no means an easy task.

It still has a long way to go until proper release, but the developers are hard at work when it comes to adding new toys to play around with as well as maps to use them on. The newly added map (DM-Chill) brings the carnage to a Nordic fortress set high in the icy mountains, have a look:

As usual, an Unreal Tournament game is able to extract every ounce of power from the Unreal Engine to create a stunningly beautiful map filled with numerous tiny details and shadow effects the majority of people might not pay attention to, but will appreciate regardless. 

While that's par for the course these days, what really impresses me is how polished the gameplay looks for something that's currently in early alpha. Some of the animations seem to be a bit stiff, but all of the weapons, movement and delicious gibbets are just as you would expect them. I knew very little about this new Unreal Tournament before this announcement, but now I have to say I'm rather looking forward to it.

The good ol' Shock Rifle

Once released Unreal Tournament will be a completely free-to-play game, but until then if you would like to give an early version of it a try you can do so over at the Unreal Tournament website. Its also worth mentioning that there are exclusive and unique cosmetic rewards set in place for alpha players, so if its swag that you seek now would be the time to jump in. Enjoy!