Epic Games sure isn't wasting any time on its recent commitment to open development of a completely free new iteration of its acclaimed arena shooter Unreal Tournament, now making a very early prototype of the game available for public download and scrutiny.

The only catch is that in order to run the prototype, you'll need Unreal Engine 4 toolset which Epic now offers under a $19/month subscription license. A blog post over on the Epic Games Community explains:

Senior Designer, Nick Donaldson posted a prototype for users to try and forum members have been discussing it and posting their own prototypes. Subscribers to Unreal Engine 4 are able to download and play the prototypes as well as create their own. Be sure to check out the prototypes and jump in to the conversation!

Nick and Matt were also hard at work last week on the UT weapons. Matt created a prototype of the shock rifle and worked on shock combos. Nick created the blueprint prototype of the Minigun and Flak Cannon. Joe Wilcox quickly found the Minigun was a bit overpowered in the Deathmatch playtest and was nearly unstoppable. You can join in the weapon discussion in the UT Weapon Design forum.

Development on the new Unreal Tournament supposedly only officially commenced when the announcement was made a couple of weeks ago, so they've already come quite a way. Head over to forums.unrealengine.com if you want to get involved in the design process.