The Half-Life 2 RTX demo proposes a nice visual upgrade and not much else

Half Life 2 RTX, the Nvidia-backed graphical overhaul mod for Valve’s seminal FPS, has a Steam demo retired today. It covers some the Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt chapters, for an extended look astatine however overmuch ray-slash-path tracing, RTX Remix plus remastering, and DLSS 4 Multi Frame Generation is being packed into the decades-old shooter.

I’ve had a fewer plays of the Ravenholm conception – my transcript of the demo is bugged and won’t unlock Nova Prospekt, which is simply a occupation Gordon Freeman and his bugs ne'er had. It’s alright! If you’ve got a sufficiently muscular graphics paper past it’s bully for a spot of sightseeing, though I would accidental there’s besides possibly much of a consecutive tech demo vibe present than Portal with RTX had. The ocular upgrades don’t wounded HL2’s atmosphere, but they don’t amended it either.

There are eye-feasts for sure: I emotion the chunky 3D-ness of the ceramic walls and cobbled streets, and Gravity Gunning a substance tube astatine a pack of headcrab shamblers sees the erstwhile metallic popular replaced by a blinding, fiery boom. The zombies themselves person had their models redone, but support frame-perfect recreations of Valve’s jerky animation work, helping to support the wide consciousness of Ravenholm’s close-quarters monsterslaying intact.

Tinkering with time-defying favourites similar this is simply a unsafe crippled – astatine slightest 1 ray tracing mod for the archetypal Half-Life fundamentally refused to play, pairing its much modern effects with ones that intentionally made it look older. Half-Life 2 RTX mightiness not beryllium that creative, but it is an acceptably faithful remaster, which is an accomplishment successful itself fixed however overmuch has been swapped retired and spruced up.

At the aforesaid time, each these caller models, textures, lights, and shadows ne'er magnitude to much than elemental oculus candy. Portal with RTX worked astatine slightest successful portion due to the fact that the much vivid effects helped, nevertheless subtly, to further merchantability the archetypal thought that you’re trapped successful a warren of intolerable huffy science. The added glow of the portals evoked an adjacent much unknowable and otherworldly quality, portion the fierce brightness of those crackling vigor orbs made them look deadlier and much volatile.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Nvidia

Half-Life 2 RTX looks good, but I’m not definite it has the aforesaid effect. Outside of 1 singular shadows-on-the-wall moment, the mod’s caller tech does small to heighten the hostility of being trapped successful a booby-trapped shade town. The zombies aren’t immoderate much gruesome. The set-pieces aren’t immoderate much dramatic. The dwindling of your non-Gravity Gun resources isn’t immoderate much unnerving. It inactive plays similar an fantabulous portion of action-horror, due to the fact that it’s Ravenholm, but the support beingness of the ocular upgrades struggles to widen beyond that archetypal "Oh cool" moment.

Worse, determination are times erstwhile the remastering over-eggs it. Father Grigori’s timeless introduction, bursting onto his attic perch and dropping headcrabs similar Psalms, is heavy obscured by the heavy fume billowing disconnected his flaming victims. Down successful front, smoke. While 99% of the texture and exemplary enactment is executed much sympathetically to the original, there’s besides a caller spot of extortion borderline geometry that clips into the drainpipes that accelerated zombies are truthful keen connected climbing. This would beryllium a nitpick worthy of the astir petulant CinemaSins video, but you really walk rather a spot of clip eyeing up these pipes, arsenic they’re cardinal to 2 abstracted enactment crescendos – making the paradoxical deficiency of polish each the much obvious.

Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Orbifold Studios

The hardware terms of admittance could beryllium an contented too, arsenic though you tin set the prime of the way tracing effects, you can’t crook them disconnected entirely. At 1440p with DLSS connected Performance mode, my idiosyncratic PC’s RTX 3090 – much typically a 4K motor – lone averaged 54fps, with tangible drops below. To effort existent 4K, I switched to the RPS trial rig and an RTX 5080, and again, this needed DLSS connected Performance to mean 50fps. Frame procreation is connected hand, pushing the RTX 5080 up to 89fps connected the 2x mounting and 165fps connected 4x, though this adds capable input lag that I wouldn’t privation to alteration framework gen without archetypal securing astatine slightest 60fps’ worthy of modular frames. Cheaper GPUs similar the RTX 4060 mightiness conflict here.

I’ll astir apt inactive play Half-Life 2 RTX erstwhile it launches successful afloat (no day there, m’afraid). If thing else, it’s been a portion since I’ve replayed Half-Life 2, and the demo has got maine funny to spot if the remainder of the crippled mightiness beryllium much impactful for its ocular changes. Curious and, if I’m honest, hopeful.