Half-Life 2 is getting a “cutting-edge ray tracing” overhaul courtesy of Nvidia’s RTX Remix modding tools, and there’s a playable demo coming on 18th March ahead of a full release.
As Nvidia explains it, RTX Remix is a way to “modernise classic games, enhancing their visuals while preserving the core gameplay that makes them special.” And Digital Foundry’s Alex Battaglia was impressed by the tech’s potential when he took a look at Portal RTX back in 2022.
Now though, after a year in beta, Nvidia’s RTX Remix tools have been officially launched into the wild, gaining the likes of DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation and RTX Neural Rendering along the way. More pertinent to this story, however, is the news Nvidia’s marking the occasion by releasing a Half-Life 2 RTX demo, showcasing the technology’s capabilities, on March 18th.
Half-Life 2 RTX is being released in conjunction with developer Orbifold Studios, and its impending Steam demo – which is only available to owners of the full game – will specifically feature Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt, both given an RTX Remix makeover. A full version of Half-Life 2 RTX by Orbifold is planned to release “at a later date”. And if you don’t already have Half-Life 2 in your Steam library, you might like to know there’s currently 80 percent off.
“RTX Remix requires a GeForce RTX GPU to create RTX Remix Mods,” Nvidia notes, “while mods and games built using Remix are compatible with any hardware that can run Vulkan ray-traced games.” Full details of today’s release can be found in Nvidia’s announcement. All of which should stand you in good stead for Half-Life 3, which might just happen after all.