UT3 Linux Client Is "In The Works"

It's been 234 days (or just shy of eight months) since Unreal Tournament 3 had shipped for the PC. Most would have thought the Linux client for this title from Epic Games would have arrived by now, but sadly it hasn't and there is no sign of when it will arrive.

Recently, Epic's Jeff "WarTourist" Morris has stopped by the Phoronix Forums. He had shared that "the UT3 linux client most definitely is progressing, albeit a lot slower than we anticipated. We don't discuss the status of patches until we know they're ready to be released." In a later post, Jeff added "I think it's likely that when we're getting close, we'll release it to the UT3 Servers and Mods mailing lists for semi-open public testing." While that message makes it sound like the client may actually be close to release, then signaling the UT3 Linux client isn't too close was another message that said "When we're close to release I'll be sure to drop everyone here a line."

Additionally, appearing on the UT3 Linux mailing list was a message forwarded from Epic's Vice President, Mark Rein. All that Mark had to say was "It is still in the works." A friendly source of ours has also had a conversation with Mark Rein regarding the Linux client or there the lack of. In response to our Epic Games Does Suppress Linux Talk posting, Mark just had to say that the threads were closed and then disappeared over "moderating duplicate threads." Ryan Gordon has been quiet on porting Unreal Tournament 3 to Linux.

It soon will be a year since Unreal Tournament 3 was released for Windows and there is zero sign of when the client may arrive for Linux or even a beta release or demo version. Will it make it out this year?