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The original Unreal Tournament<\/em>, first released in 1999, launched with a ton of maps, most of which have long been consigned to the Recycle Bin of history. There\u2019s one, however, one very simple map, that has stood the test of time: Facing Worlds.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a simple, fundamentally broken <\/em>map, one that features two stone towers linked by two small land bridges, a symmetrical murder rock that is wildly unbalanced, favours snipers above all else and by today\u2019s standards wouldn\u2019t even make it to a whiteboard in a brainstorming session, let alone into the retail release of a game.<\/p>\n

And yet! And yet. We love it all the same, because as busted as it is, it\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s simple. It captures everything about the game it was a part of, and everything we loved about shooters at the time. <\/p>\n

All of which, and more, is explored in this excellent video about the map by Noclip<\/span>, which is rightly critical of its flaws (by 2022’s standards), but also right to point out that, like so many other games and moments from the dawn of the 3D age, they\u2019ve endured and are regarded as classics because the technical limitations of the time created a sort of purity, a distilled experience born as much out of what the developers couldn\u2019t do with these new, 3D spaces as what they could.<\/p>\n