Half-Life 2 is Getting the Next RTX Treatment from Nvidia

A few years ago, Nvidia showcased their experimental ray-tracing technology called RTX for their upcoming graphics card lineup. It was such a fascinating upgrade that most of the developers were interested in implementing RTX into their titles in order to add some flashiness and a new look. The uprising of ray-tracing got to a point where Nvidia’s certain percentage of in-house developers devoted their time to creating old games with ray-tracing technology. The first one to appear was Valve’s first puzzle game, Portal, and soon, the classic FPS Quake followed with Quake RTX.

Nvidia’s developers, satisfied with how Portal RTX came out, decided to move to another Valve classic: Half-Life 2. While this game has been worked on by both Valve and the community, it is reasonable to think of Nvidia’s next move being Half-Life 2. With this upcoming RTX mod, Half-Life 2 will get rid of its crunchy, low-res texture quality and bring a fresh breath to how the Half-Life universe looks.

 

Although the mod has been backed by Nvidia, and some of the important figures of the Half-Life Modding community, Valve has nothing to do with the project. Our guess would be that, as everyone knows, Valve is pretty much comfortable with their titles being turned into something else and letting people’s creativity flow in. Of course, if the modders are not breaking any copyright infringements in the process.

Nvidia’s project does not only consist of remapping the textures and adding the ray-tracing flavor though. With this project, there are subdivisions to bring more life to Half-Life 2, such as the addition of the VR, remade assets, and tweaks that would give a different, yet not unfamiliar combat experience. Each member of both Nvidia and the community is divided on their own project respectively.

It is not certainly the first time Half-Life 2 is being revived in a way of upping the graphics technicality. A modder by the name Filip Viktor, who evidently also made Half-Life 2: Update, has brought all of his mods under one compilation called Half-Life 2: Remastered Collection. All of the mods he had made are about graphical overhauls of all Half-Life 2 titles and they have been praised for their quality. This compilation has nothing to do with the RTX mod, but they are closely affected by each other's works.

It is not certain when the RTX addition of Half-Life 2 will be available to the public. As it is stated to the public through the main developer, Orbifold Studios, they have just begun gathering assets and info about their roadmap. So we can at least wait for a year before Half-Life 2: RTX starts taking shape.

Atilla Turan (@burningarrow)
Editor, NoobFeed