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.
If you’ve been under a headcrab this whole time, Half-Life 2 RTX is set to overhaul the shooter. Valve’s original FPS game still has its charm and is worth playing today, but this new version from Orbifold Studios is the perfect companion. Accelerated by Nvidia DLSS 4, this version of HL2 uses RTX Remix to introduce cutting-edge ray tracing that puts the original game in an all-new light. Textures, lighting, and other details have been brought into the modern age, almost making it feel like a different game.
“Orbifold is updating every texture, model, and level, adding extra geometric detail to buildings and surfaces to realistically interact with fully ray-traced lighting. Even particles and animations are being revitalized to bring Half-Life 2 to modern graphical standards,” the team writes.
Now, Orbifold Studios has released a demo for Half-Life 2 RTX that includes the Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt portions of Valve’s original game. The download is entirely free, making it a simple proposition if you managed to grab the original game at no cost when Valve overhauled the experience.
That said, you might need to clear out some space on your PC first. The Half-Life 2 RTX demo comes in at a staggering 41.4 GB (but a known issue currently has it reading at over 80 GB, so ignore that). That’s around five times bigger than the original HL2’s 8.37 GB. This download may contain a lot more than the two levels you can play (as some demos often contain more of the completed game’s files), but you’ll still want to make sure you’ve got more than enough space for it.
The Half-Life 2 RTX demo is available now, but you’ll need 40 GB of hard drive space to download it. Just go here.
If you want more, we’ve got all the best old games you can play today alongside some big single-player games to try as well.
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