Half Life 2 RTX: The demo is available for free for owners of the original

Half-Life 2 RTX: Demo Available Free for Owners of the Original 27 Comments

Half-Life 2 RTX: Demo Available Free for Owners of the Original

Image: Orbifold Studios

Half-Life 2 RTX is available for the first time to players on Steam. Downloading the demo requires ownership of the original 2004 game. A total of two game sections from the classic FPS have been re-released by RTX Remix for players; the rest of the game continues to be extensive.

Ravenholm and Nova Prospectus in a New Light

The demo takes players through the city of Ravenholm, which is being zombified by Headcrabs, and the combination prison of Nova Prospectus. These two game sections are already among the atmospheric highlights of the game in the base game for many players and were not chosen without reason, as both, with their nighttime environments and numerous interior areas, can particularly highlight the strengths of the new Raytracing New Edition. The downside is that with today’s release, a fraction of the game, in the form of two unrelated level sections, will find its way to interested players’ PCs. Orbifold Studios hasn’t shared a release date for the full remake. Given that Half-Life 2 RTX is essentially a fan project with Nvidia backing, it may still take some time for the entire game, from City 17 to the combined Citadel finale, to shine in new splendor.

Half-Life 2 RTX

On the technical side, Half-Life 2 RTX offers new, completely revised, high-resolution assets and materials and can certainly push the limits when it comes to ray tracing: there’s an extremely demanding pathtracing mode that should push the limits of what’s possible. Techastuce will take a closer look at the technology and performance in a test.

The minimum system requirements for a title with Raytracing Focus are almost moderate, but from a macro perspective: Steam lists an Intel Core i5-8600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 in combination with 16GB of RAM, and at least a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is required. The 50GB of memory, which must be present at least, shows that high-resolution assets come at a price.

The Half-Life 2 RTX demo is available for free to all owners of the original game on Steam. There should be plenty, after all, Half-Life 2’s Steam account requirement in 2004 was the reason to sign up for Valve’s new gaming platform at the time. Meanwhile, Half-Life 2 remains a beloved gaming classic and was even voted the best game of all time in a TechAstuce community roundup in 2021.

Topics: Action Games, Ego, Shooter, Gaming, Half-Life, Valve, Source: Steam