A single developer has remade Call of Duty 2's Carentan level with photo-scanned models, ray tracing and more
Correction: This article originally stated that the Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines RTX Remaster used AI tools, which is incorrect – all assets are hand-made. We regret the error. Original article continues:
As well as boosting its GeForce Now cloud streaming with PS5 Pro-beating hardware and new peripheral options, Nvidia has also detailed some of its recent RTX Remix successes at Gamescom 2025. If you’re not familiar, RTX Remix is a set of tools for remastering old games with modern graphics techniques, converting ancient engines to support ray-traced lighting, shadow and reflections, new particular effects, higher-quality materials and so on. Specifically, the firm is announcing the winners of its RTX Remix contest, and showing off exactly what makes each fan-made graphics mod worthy of recognition. I took a look at some of the winning entries at Nvidia’s booth here in Cologne, and was particularly impressed by the RTX Remix of a seminal classic, Call of Duty 2.
The project is the work of a single developer, tadpole3159, who has been painstakingly photo-scanning real-world WW2 weaponry in order to produce a version of the game that holds up against modern competitors. Like other RTX Remix projects, the aim is to use physically-correct materials, tagging different assets in the game with what they’re made of so that they have realistic roughness, reflectivity and so on. With that in place, objects in the world can react realistically to changing lighting conditions, cast appropriate shadows and produce rough or clear reflections as appropriate.
Descriptions of the mod state that tadpole3159 is a lead artist at a UK game studio, which perhaps explains how a single person has been able to create assets (at least for the Carentan level of the game) unassisted. The demo that I saw included hotkeys for changing the time of day, allowing you to see how the game world can change drastically from bright sunlight, to the dead of night, to varying levels of overhead cloud. (The developer is British, the Nvidia reps explained, so they found it easier to produce lots of convincingly realistic grey skies.) As well as the material upgrades, rooms are being upgraded with period-appropriate contents, walls get new details and foliage is expanded to lush excess. It dramatically changes the look of the game, and is an impressive effort for a project made in around two months.
