At the 2025 Game Developers Conference, Nvidia gave us an exciting update on the Half-Life 2 RTX mod. They revealed that a free demo of this visually-improved classic would be available starting March 18, and that day is finally here. If you already own Half-Life 2 on Steam, you can grab this demo at no extra cost. The mod gives a dramatic facelift to Valve’s iconic 2004 shooter, adding high-end features like DLSS 4, ray tracing, and upgraded textures.
The demo offers about two hours of gameplay, featuring chapters from both Ravenholm and Nova Prospekt. To dive into these revamped visuals, you’ll want to install the demo and select “New Game.” Begin with the Ravenholm chapter, and once you’ve completed it, you’ll unlock the RTX-enhanced Nova Prospekt chapter. Unfortunately, Nvidia hasn’t yet revealed when the full version of this mod will be available.
Half-Life 2 RTX, much like the previous Portal with RTX, exemplifies how stunningly Nvidia’s RTX Remix platform can polish up older games. This tool allows modders to breathe new life into classic titles, infusing them with modern visual techniques like volumetric lighting, realistic reflections, and ray tracing. Of course, to enjoy all these eye-catching enhancements, you’ll need a beefy Nvidia RTX graphics card. Given the demanding nature of these updates, even the latest RTX 50-series GPUs can feel the pressure. So if you’re working with RTX 30- or 40-series cards, you might want to dial down a few settings for smoother gameplay.