Unreal is often overshadowed by Half Life and other 90's era shooters, played down among some groups as insignificant, but this wasn't always the case. Unreal received critical praise on release for its bleeding-edge textures, lighting, environments, and AI.

It apes the arena shooter multiplayer maps of Quake but against bots, the outdoor areas of an Unreal or Turok game, and weaves in a meta-narrative about what's apparently dead players brought back to life as digital ghosts to compete for a deranged benefactor's entertainment and nostalgia