We’ve seen plenty of older games getting treated to a dose of Nvidia RTX magic, including Doom and Quake II, but now we’ve been given a taster of how Wolfenstein 3D ray tracing would look with full RTX path tracing, and the result is both beautiful and bewildering in equal measure.
Arguably the original first-person shooter, Wolfenstein 3D wowed 90s PC gamers (including me) with its fast-paced and surprisingly smooth 3D action on our big, beige boxes, although it all looks quite primitive by today’s standards. However, these screenshots show a secret Wolfenstein 3D level in Doom 2, with the lighting handled by an RTX path on one of today’s best graphics cards, making the game almost unrecognizable.
The screenshots were shared by Nvidia’s GeForce evangelist, Jacob Freeman, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), and they demonstrate what happens when you apply path tracing to chunky, pixelated graphics. The lighting looks incredible, adding a touch of realism to the floor and ceiling, as well as the walls and objects, while the shadows sprawl across the floor under the dead bodies.
It’s the shadows that really demonstrate this clash of ages, though. The small contours in the bodies’ clothes are outlined with a small selection of pixels and colors, which looks fine at 320 x 200 on a 90s PC, but they look really weird with realistic shadows under them. The pixelated bodies and blood pools also really clash with the realistic lighting in the rest of the scene.
A new Doom enhanced edition was recently released as a free upgrade, which you can also play for free on GamePass. It covers the first two classic Doom games, and gives players access to advanced resolution options (including all the way up to 4K), as well as loads of levels and goodies that weren’t in the original games. Add a Doom II ray tracing mod, and you can try out some retro ray tracing for yourself.
If you’re now hankering for another retro gaming fix you can run on your new PC, check out our guide to the best retro games on PC, where my personal recommendation is Ron Gilbert’s new point-and-click adventure, Thimbleweed Park. The next step, of course, is full RTX Wolfenstein 3D. Come on id Software and Nvidia, you know what to do.
