A modder has created an RTX remaster of a legendary first-person shooter from 1998.
With RTX Remix, Nvidia offers a powerful modding tool that allows interested parties to produce their own RTX remasters of classic games. One modder has used the toolbox to create a beautiful new edition of the epic shooter Unreal, which was released in 1998.
Unreal is barely recognizable
The modder is “mstewart401,” who has made the project available for free at MODDB. A first demo of “UnrealRTX,” as he calls the remaster mod, was already available in July 2025. Now the entire game is finished (via PCGH).
The RTX remaster offers three main improvements:
- Revised lighting: Ray tracing, global illumination, dynamic shadows, volumetric light, and impressive lighting effects
- Physically based materials (PBR): Surfaces now react realistically to light, with true metal effects, varying roughness, subsurface scattering, and noticeable depth
- Improved environment models: Parts of the game world and selected objects have been replaced with more detailed models to increase visual quality.
Nvidia employee Jacob Freeman has shared a series of screenshots from UnrealRTX on X, showing the significantly improved visuals. The game is actually barely recognizable:
Unreal RTX is out now, which is a WIP RTX Remix mod for Unreal 1 by mstewart401, featuring new PBR materials & textures, geometry, path traced lighting and shadows, volumetrics and DLSS 4. It looks amazing 👀 pic.twitter.com/EBKTkrqSot
— Jacob Freeman (@GeForce_JacobF) October 20, 2025
Try it for free: Not only can the RTX mod be downloaded for free, but so can the entire game. On the page Old Unreal website, Unreal, Unreal 2, and Unreal Tournament are available for free download.
So if you want to experience the 1998 classic again with improved graphics, or for the very first time, now is your chance.
Legendary shooter: The name Unreal is no coincidence, as it was the very first title developed in the Unreal Engine and gave the engine its name.
The shooter was therefore also an important milestone for Epic Games.
In the game, players find themselves stranded as prisoners of a prison transport ship on the alien planet Na Pali. The Nali, the indigenous people of the planet, have been subjugated by the brutal Skaarj.
In the game, players are stranded as prisoners of a prison transport ship on the alien planet Na Pali. The native Nali people have been subjugated by the brutal Skaarj because their planet is rich in a valuable crystal.
In addition to the single-player mode, in which the Skaarj are defeated, Unreal also offered a multiplayer mode with various modes such as Deathmatch and King of the Hill. The series also had a strong influence on the multiplayer shooter genre.
