Well, I would be spinning and screaming and scratching in my grave, too...if some bastards would prematurely bury me.
Especially now, where they have to make good for 520 million dollars...

Oh great, now i regret not getting those on sale.

I wonder if it will it be like classic Fallout games situation or is it a permanent decision by that awful company that still calls themselves Epic.

I just bought them as they just went on sale for 40% off each. 24$ total for all 4 games!

Epic is have been very unethical lately in many ways with "sneaky" attempts to push you into Epic Store (even if you're not their customer) and trying to put even more spyware on your computer (think EAC and EOS).

They're probably doing all they can to harm the reputation of competing stores (GOG, Steam, Itch etc etc). It should be noted that these games are not only being removed from GOG, they're being removed from all other stores.

Epic probably has mind to release a "remaster" that's Epic store exclusive.

Thus, the line was probably removed because Epic flatout refused to negotiate.

Honestly though, at this point you're better off avoiding putting any of their software on your computer that goes from EAC to EOS to their games. Who knows what sneaky things they're doing on your computer.

Bearing in mind the reason that EAC can't have "full anti-cheat" mode on Linux is not a technical limitation as such, it's more so that they would have to create a kernel module (rootkit) and that kernel module would have to be installed with root privileges, which means the game can't just "sneak it in" like it can on Windows.

User installed applications (think flatpak) could also not install this module, combined with the fact that due to the nature of the module it also could not be submitted upstream to the kernel and no distribution would touch it (except arch AUR or maybe SteamOS), it would be quite difficult to get it onto peoples systems without them knowing like they do on Windows.

All in all.. not a company you should trust.

Yea you better ask if they are delisting all their other titles like Jill of the Jungle/Jazz Jackrabbit/Epic Pinball etc..

They probably will, over time :-)

Keep in mind that Epic's games on GOG are not discounted as part of the Winter Sale. This appears to be the first major GOG sale that Epic has skipped in a long time so I would guess that delisting for the rest of these games is imminent.

UPDATE: All of Epic's games on GOG are on sale now.

Yeah, i noticed that they are on sale like 5 minutes ago too. Still, it's worrying.

Hoping for a going away sale!

So this is the other half of that Epic Games get free advertising on Galaxy deal then? (facepalm)...

With the classic Fallouts, Interplay sold the IP rights to Bethesda, so the games were delisted for a short time while the transfer took place. Here, Epic isn't giving up any IP rights, they just don't want these old Unreal games on digital storefronts for whatever reason.

Well, that's depressing

I wonder whether Epic will make any effort to keep them off abandonware sites. That might give some indication as to whether they have any plans for the games besides burying them.

They definitly making no friends with that. They rather push people away who are still with them.

The games will still be able to be played online and offline. "gametracker" helps for the first server search, than "OPEN IP:PORT" after that the new master servers should kick in with a mod and the game works like normal. If someone needs help, look out for some discord-servers or forums and you get some.
...
Shutting down stats servers -> no problem there are better community made mods
Shutting down master servers -> a bigger deal, but there are better and more stable community made ones on the way or already there

Delisting from stores -> .. Why? .. You can still fix that @EpicGames. => Don't do that, rather make them open source. No one will switch to fortnight from that games, it's more likely that parents who played that games will forbid there kids and grandkids to use EpicGames ever again.

Yeah I would say everyone keep an eye on the myabandonware pages for these games, hopefully that site or others have the courage to step up to the plate on this. In two days the games will be abandonware, after all.