At the 2025 Game Developers Conference, Nvidia brought some exciting news for fans of Half-Life 2. They announced an update about the upcoming RTX mod and revealed that a free demo, showcasing the game’s significantly upgraded visuals, was launching on March 18. That day is finally here, offering all Steam owners of Half-Life 2 the opportunity to dive into this visual feast. This mod takes Valve’s legendary 2004 FPS and transforms it with high-end graphics, complete with DLSS 4 support, ray tracing, and enhanced textures.
This demo, which runs for about two hours, lets you explore a chapter from Ravenholm and another from Nova Prospekt. Once you’ve got it installed, you can try out these stunning new graphics features. Start by selecting “New Game” and heading into the Ravenholm chapter. After finishing that, you’ll unlock the RTX-enabled Nova Prospekt chapter, accessible in the same way. As for when we can expect the full release, Nvidia hasn’t spilled the beans yet.
Half-Life 2 RTX, similar to Portal with RTX, serves as a stunning proof of concept for Nvidia’s innovative RTX Remix platform. This tool gives modders the power to breathe new visual life into older games, enhancing them with cutting-edge technology like volumetric lighting and realistic reflections, alongside advanced ray tracing. These effects demand a lot from hardware, so to really enjoy Half-Life 2 RTX, you’ll need a powerful Nvidia RTX graphics card. It’s designed to utilize the latest tech specs, and even with the beefy RTX 50-series GPUs, it pushes the limits. Those with RTX 30- or 40-series cards might need to dial down some settings for optimal performance.
