Eventually, it was packaged up with Unreal and released as Unreal Gold, on January 21, 2000. RTNP was released to stores on May 31, 1999. No demo was ever released for this expansion pack. Also, some of the arenas were specifically designed to showcase the enemies' navigation and combat skills.

Unique to the pack (and something carried over to Unreal II: The Awakening) are the intermission sections, which lead designer Mike Verdu wanted to add in order to tie the different elements of the game together. However, this didn't mean that things weren't cut from the game: the levels Morose, Nexus, Nexus End, Mercenary Shipping Lane, Cryox, Velora Cellars and Soledad were still left out of the final product. On top of that, the development team also added a few new weapons, a few new enemies, and new levels. According to Matthias Worch, the pack was supposed to be quickly created using many of the leftover art and assets from the development of Unreal, and nearly all of the levels that were cut from Unreal. Return to Na Pali began development sometime from mid- to late 1998 by Legend Entertainment, not as a new game, but as an expansion and homage to the original Unreal, which meant understanding what had made the original Unreal successful.

Unreal return to na pali walkthrough