Players React to the Half-Life 2 RTX Demo
On March 18th, a demo for Half-Life 2 RTX, a remaster of the iconic 2004 shooter with significantly enhanced graphics, launched on Steam. The demo features two levels: the derelict town of Ravenholm and the Nova Prospekt prison. Gamers have already gotten their hands on it and are sharing their initial impressions.
The demo currently holds a Mixed rating on Steam, sitting at 66%. The main criticisms revolve around what players describe as blurry or washed-out graphics and poor optimization. Many report performance issues even on high-end PCs. Some have also complained about the demo's substantial size (around 80 GB).
«6 FPS on an RTX 3080. Unplayable. Only worth booting up to take a look,» – RuBeRoiD
«Spent 5 minutes testing each map, and that was enough for me. The mod is well made, but the optimization is a real problem,» – ALEBAR
«Terrible optimization. Without all the bells and whistles, it doesn't even break 30 FPS without DLSS,» – AlexTV
«Too blurry, even without DLSS. Better to play the original,» – DemonicCake
«This is so bad it's hard to describe. On an RTX 4080 at 3440x1440 with the quality preset, it doesn't even hit 30 FPS,» – Jakhner
«The visuals are awful. This isn't a demo, it's an alpha. Everything lags,» – WearHant
«Cool concept, but unplayable on an RX 7900 XTX. I'll probably play it in 10-15 years when the hardware exists to actually run this Path Tracing properly,» – Bagrus.
Half-Life 2 RTX is being developed by Orbifold Studios, a third-party team comprised of developers from Half-Life 2: VR, Half-Life 2: Remade Assets, Project 17, and Raising the Bar: Redux. The game will be free, but requires a Steam copy of Half-Life 2 to play. A release date for the full version has not yet been announced.
As a reminder, a substantial graphics comparison between Half-Life 2 RTX and the original Half-Life 2 surfaced previously.
