At the beginning of the year, we looked at games that needed a remake. Looking at titles like Ico, as well as Tomb Raider 2, which is receiving a remaster. Half-Life is another game on the list. We haven’t seen a primary sequel to Half-Life 2, which fans are yearning for. After all, the renowned franchise will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary next year. As a result, the franchise is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. So, with that in mind, we have some good news.
What we do have isn’t a sequel to the second game, nor is it a remake. However, the second game has received an upgrade with the official unveiling of Half-Life 2 RTX. This isn’t the first RTX project to use a Valve game. Portal has previously had a similar treatment. The reveal trailer is included below.
So we see from the trailer and the official screens, it’s a very significant upgrade. Look at the original compared to the new RTX mix screen comparisons in the announcement. Telling us that “almost every asset is being reconstructed in high fidelity, and full ray tracing (otherwise known as path tracing) is being leveraged to bring cutting-edge graphics” to this release. Now the “average world textures have 8X the pixels, and assets like the suit feature 20X the geometric detail of the original game”.
We don’t have a release date or platform, but I expect it to be limited to PCs, similar to the Portal release. That version is not currently available on the console. As a result, Xbox and PlayStation gamers are unlikely to witness this fresh take on a classic. That’s a pity because the RTX version of Portal is a fantastic enhancement. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to watching it.
