Mayhem, destruction, chaos, and disorder are the orders of the day when Epic Games and Midway team up to bring us a new title. Unreal Tournament 2007 promises these and so much more when it finally releases to shelves across America. Epic is aiming to make UT2007 the perfect blend of the original Unreal Tournament and UT2004.

UT2007 will continue the legacy its predecessors have left behind in gritty style. The visuals will be created and controlled by a brand new engine, the Unreal Engine 3. This engine is not only one of the best looking games coming in the near future, but it is so good looking the developers had to "grungify" it. This means that the game looks so good it looked unrealistically clean and shiny. Epic recently added a new feature to the engine that they call "grungification". This adds grime, dirt, and decay to the environment and weapons of the game, making sure you know you aren't the first soldier to cross this path, and you will not be the last.

The environments are also being reworked in concept. Rather than appearing as though the tournament is being held in an alternate dimension devoid of all life, Epic has decided to make sure each map is an obviously sealed-off portion of a living, breathing world. The commonly featured city map oft shown is simply a small portion of a full-scale city. The tournament area has been contained by force field to ensure citizen safety, but outside that bubble there is still a living, operating city. Even within the fight arena there are obvious evidences that the area wasn't simply created for the purpose of holding this year's tournament. The environment also includes more interactivity and visual effects. Avalanches and cave-ins will rock the land during gameplay, and objects such as the power generator will no longer have a status bar, but react and degrade as damage is dealt.

The weapons arsenal is apparently somewhat unchanged from UT2004, though it is not yet finalized. With the huge increase in graphics comes an amazing improvement in the weapon functional visuals. The rockets load individually, the alternate-fire transformations are a step-by-step process, and shots ring out of the barrels with a glare and a streak that rivals most war movies. The explosions upon impact could easily be confused for a news reel, with shrapnel and shadows flying in every direction.

Confirmed for the new title are also at least a few new vehicles, along with the existing vehicles from the previous game. There are a few interesting vehicles to note, vehicles like the Paladin, which is a very defensive vehicle with a small turret and a large shield. The shield can be used to absorb fire in any direction, so long as it is aimed correctly. There is also a new sustained flight vehicle, as well as old of your old friends.

With UT2004 came a new way to play the tournament. Added into the mix, with a great number of fans, was a mode called onslaught. This has been confirmed to be returning in UT2007, along with a new game mode named conquest. Conquest will play a bit like onslaught, but with a bit of assault mixed in for flavor. Players will be trying to destroy several points of an enemy's, as well as take control of their land, all while defending their own. These hard-hit points are separately controlled by mission, and upon the completion of that mission the team gains a new bonus. For your amazing push through the enemy forces to take hold of a particular strongpoint, your team now has a new place to spawn, closer to the front. These small, objective-based missions continue until one team has all of the points.

While there is no official release date for this frantically anticipated title, most expect it out in the last quarter of 2006. Epic and Midway are well on their ways to outdoing themselves, with all of this amazing improvement, plus the continued supreme support of the modding community. While we have a while to wait for the game, we can also all breathe a sigh of relief that we don't have to buy more upgrades for our computers for a while. The game was last shown to the press on a quarto SLI computer, meaning it had four graphics cards simultaneously processing the game's stunning visuals. While it is doubtful this will be necessary, the game probably will take a bit of power to play. Here's to hoping for more havoc and destruction on the internet coming sometime late this year or early next.