Half-Life 2 is one of the best loved FPS games in the genre's history, even with its cliffhanger story still unresolved nearly two decades since its last episodic expansion launched. Unsurprisingly, then, fans of Valve's shooter series have been eager to see its most recent, non-VR entry return in any form. Following projects like Half-Life 1 remake Black Mesa and spin-off Half-Life: Alyx, Half-Life 2 returned with fresh updates from Steam celebrating its 20th anniversary last autumn and, as of yesterday, a section of the game received a glossy RTX-enabled remix. Sadly, performance issues have marred the experience for many users so far.
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The Half-Life 2 RTX demo takes five times more HDD space than Half-Life 2 itself
Nvidia just announced a free playable Half-Life 2 RTX demo, and it's coming soon
Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and even Day of Defeat have been updated by Valve
After what feels like eons of waiting, the Half-Life 2 RTX demo is finally here. You can try two levels of the fan-made enhancement to Valve's epochal FPS right now, turning the classic shooter on its head with an array of game-changing new visuals. This comes not long after Valve itself enhanced HL2 and briefly gave it away for free, so this no-cost demo is the perfect way to make one of PC's most important videogames of all time look even better. You might want to clear some hard drive space, though, because it isn't exactly a small download.
RELATED LINKS:
Nvidia just announced a free playable Half-Life 2 RTX demo, and it's coming soon
Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and even Day of Defeat have been updated by Valve
I played Half-Life 2 RTX with Nvidia neural rendering, and it looks damn fine
Remember when Nvidia announced that Half-Life 2 RTX mod way back in, crikey, 2023? Yeah, I didn't realise how long it had been either. To be perfectly honest I thought it had already come out, but apparently not, because just this week Nvidia shared that Half-Life 2 RTX is getting a demo next week on March 18th. No, the full mod still doesn't have a release date, but when do any game projects ever release quickly after they were announced?
Soon you'll be able to don Gordon Freeman's HEV suit in full ray-traced glory, smashing your trusty crowbar into headcrabs with realistic shadows and reflections, as Nvidia has just announced that a playable Half-Life 2 RTX demo will be available to download in March 2025. Not only that, but if you already own Half-Life 2 (and sort that out if you don't), the demo will be a free download.
The launch comes as Nvidia announces that RTX Remix is now officially out of open beta, with a host of new neural rendering features on the platform. According to Nvidia, you'll get around two hours of gameplay in the new Half-Life 2 demo, which will not only bring ray tracing to the classic FPS, but also a host of new features, including RTX Skin, neural radiance cache, and DLSS 4. I had a chance to play with some of these Half-Life 2 RTX neural rendering features at CES, where Nvidia was showing off the game, and I came away really impressed by them.
RELATED LINKS:
Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and even Day of Defeat have been updated by Valve
I played Half-Life 2 RTX with Nvidia neural rendering, and it looks damn fine
Valve just released a new version of Half-Life 2, and it's free right now