WTF!!!

[[RMD]rOckaliEn]

Epic is turning off online services and servers for some older games

December 14, 2022
Starting today, we will begin turning off out-of-date online services and servers for many older games in the Epic family as we move to solely support Epic Online Services with its unified friends system, voice chat features, parental controls, and parental verification features. Most titles will be playable offline, while some will no longer be playable. We apologize to the players affected by these changes.

The following titles will have all online services disabled on January 24, after which players can continue playing single or local multiplayer modes offline:

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

We have started removing games that were still available from all digital storefronts and are disabling any in-game DLC purchasing as of today. We also removed the Mac and Linux versions of Hatoful Boyfriend and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star from storefronts today, as well as the mobile title DropMix. Players who already own these titles will still be able to play.

Battle Breakers will shut down and no longer be accessible to players on December 30. We will automatically refund players for any in-game purchases made via Epic direct payment 180 days prior to today. Unreal Tournament (Alpha), Rock Band Blitz, Rock Band Companion app and SingSpace will be shut down and no longer accessible to players on January 24.

Thank you to all of the players and communities who have enjoyed these titles over the years.

[Reimu Hakurei]

Hard to believe that, but unfortunately this is true. :/
They've even took every Unreal title off from Steam, so only who had purchased them before can download directly from Steam. They're all still available on GOG.com however. Don't know if they'll going to take them off there, but who knows.

It's also funny that they're wanting to bring back the (imo) worst of all UT titles a.k.a. UT3, now called "Unreal Tournament 3 X", and what's more interesting, coming back now for free.

It wouldn't affect much people from Unreal 1 and UT99 as thanks to OldUnreal.com they're running an alternative master server the moment you got their recent patches, which is not the case at the moment for UT2003/UT2004, unfortunately.
Still there are some workarounds that are starting to roll on, like SgtMuffin's new server list/plan for UT2004 master server with his LlamaPunter.
You can see his announcement at https://punter.vengefulllama.com

And well, let UT4 die in the end, never liked it much anyway, haha. Blame Epic for not giving UT4 proper love and continuation after they went full Fortnite mode.

EDIT:
Apparently the guys at the OpenSpy.net managed to quickly create a new master server for UT that works for both UT2003 AND UT2004.
It's still WIP, but it's already running on the go. You can see more details at:
https://ut2004serverlist.com/
http://beta.openspy.net/en/howto/ut2k-engine/ut2004
http://beta.openspy.net/en/server-list/ut2004 - their server list (still incomplete as of dec 15th)
There's also few more players wanting to work on a new master server and I've heard also that the OldUnreal guys have stuff for UT2004 but they're not allowed to publish/distribute them yet.