number of matches. Challenge mode has players attempting challenges of varying difficulty in single matches. Completing these modes unlocks different mutators and characters for use in multiplayer or single-player vs bot games. Multiplayer Before a multiplayer game starts, the host can change gravity, regenerate health, and otherwise modify gameplay with "mutators" as is common in the Unreal series of games. Multiplayer games are eight player maximum games, and can be free for all modes, such as normal deathmatch, or team-based games such as team deathmatch and capture the flag. Unreal Championship 2 shipped with 50 multiplayer maps to play the various modes on, with maps designated for certain gametypes. Online multiplayer features are no-longer available on Xbox Live with the discontinuation of all original Xbox online features. Development Unreal Championship 2 began development after Unreal Tournament 2003 was released and a planned sequel was in the works for the PC. Unreal Championship 2 came as a result of a possible console port of Unreal Tournament 2005 (which was instead changed to Unreal Tournament 3 after the branching off). Epic Games decided to move the game over to the consoles and became a three-game contract between Midway Games and Epic Games. With the Midway publishing deal, Raiden from the Mortal Kombat series of games, which Midway owned before its bankruptcy, was added as an unlockable playable character. Additionally, players could switch from the normal Unreal Tournament male announcer to the announcer from the Mortal Kombat games being published at that time. The game was built on a custom version of Unreal Engine 2.5, dubbed 'Unreal Engine 2X'. Created specifically for the Xbox console by Epic Games, the engine could push "3-4 times the polygons of the original Unreal Championship game..." and for its time "outperform[ed] most current generation PC games even though they run on much faster CPUs". Part of the reason the game was very detailed, and could rival PC games of that time was due to the engine's memory enhancements which allowed them to reduce the console memory footprint and manage leaks more efficiently. Leak On July 31, 2021, a leak of an unfinished Windows port appeared online. Soundtrack The soundtrack for Unreal Championship 2 was composed by Kevin Riepl. Reception Unreal Championship 2 has an 85 average on Metacritic. References External links Official website 2005 video games First-person shooters Hero shooters Midway video games Arena shooters Cancelled Windows