Controversial FPS game from the year 2000 gets RTX Remix path tracing mod

Long before it became a Call of Duty support studio, Raven Software released the well-received but controversial first-person shooter Soldier of Fortune in 2000. Built using id Software's Quake II engine, the game received considerable critical and even political backlash due to its GHOUL engine, which featured realistic violence and dismemberment of its human enemies.

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Soldier of Fortune - RTX Remix Mod, image credit Pathtraced Paradise/YouTube

Compared to the visual fidelity in modern FPS games, the blocky and chunky polygon characters of the original Soldier of Fortune look dated and a far cry from realistic. That said, as someone who played the game on a PC at the time, being able to blow off limbs with a shotgun was one of those 'whoa' moments that marked the transition of PC gaming to full 3D visuals and environments.

• Read more: Unreal RTX Remix mod lets you play the classic 1998 FPS with full ray tracing

Fans of the original or those interested in the history of FPS games will be pleased to learn that modder 'Pathtraced Paradise' is working on an RTX Remix mod for Soldier of Fortune, which replaces in-game lighting with path tracing alongside physically based rendering for materials. According to the modder, it's "still very much a work in progress," which is evident in the following videos of the game's first two levels.

As seen in the first video above, many in-game materials and textures have been updated with RTX Remix to give the game a more realistic yet heavily stylized look. With the same 2000-era detail that includes characters, vehicles, and buildings rendered with very few polygons, the RTX Remix look is similar to NVIDIA's own Quake 2 RTX project from several years ago, where you've got retro graphics blended with cutting-edge lighting effects. The end result is impressive, but not on the same level as a full remake, such as the Half-Life 2 RTX Remix project.

The modder notes that the dark visuals are due to the game being lit with emissive textures and the mod being tuned for an HDR display, and that the plan is to revisit the settings and "increase the lighting if needed." As far as RTX Remix mods go, this Soldier of Fortune mod appears to focus on updating the game's lighting and textures while retaining the original models and other assets. This means the mod should probably be released sooner rather than later, so stay tuned for download details as soon as they become available.