Gravity cannon, Father Gregory and the terribly beautiful Ravenholm: NVIDIA showed the first gameplay of Half-Life 2 RTX

NVIDIA, as part of its presentation at the CES 2024 consumer electronics show, presented a gameplay trailer for Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project, a remaster of Valve’s cult shooter based on the RTX Remix platform.

Image source: NVIDIA

Using RTX Remix tools, developers from Orbifold Studios are going to completely rework Half-Life 2: high-poly models, physically based rendering (PBR), path tracing, DLSS 3.5, Reflex and RTX IO.

In the Half-Life 2 RTX gameplay trailer shown at CES 2024, you can take a look at the updated Ravenholm, Father Gregory, zombies, shooting from a submachine gun and using the gravity gun.

NVIDIA boasts that the textures in Half-Life 2 RTX's world of Ravenholm will have eight times (average) more pixels, and the monsters there contain up to 30 times more geometry detail (from 4,200 to 75,590 triangles).

Other details of work on Half-Life 2 RTX:

Father Gregory now consists of 68,341 polygons; gravity gun improvements – seven times more pixels in textures and 70 times more geometry details; the team provided the entirety of Ravenholm with realistic lighting and shadows; weapon materials, glass, metals and plastics react realistically to the world around them, reflecting light, casting shadows and changing color; updated reload animations; the flash from shots illuminates even the darkest rooms; Orbifold Studio used Valve's Hammer editor to rework particles and explosions.

Zombies in Half-Life 2 RTX

Since the announcement of Half-Life 2 RTX, Orbifold Studios, which consisted of four teams of modders, has attracted new enthusiasts to the project. The team size is currently 65 people.

Half-Life 2 RTX: An RTX Remix Project is billed as the “most comprehensive graphical remaster” of Half-Life 2. In August the project was in the early stages of development. Release dates have not been specified.