A Half-Life 2 RTX demo is now available for Windows on Steam, kicking off this free modification for Half-Life 2, Valve's classic first-person shooter sequel (which is required). Despite not being listed as a demo, that's what last week's announcement called it, and the description also says it is the "Ravenholm and Nova Proskpekt demo." This project from community-based developer Orbifold Studios leverages NVIDIA's RTX Remix software to enhance the graphics of this 2004 release with all sorts of modern goodness for owners of NVIDIA RTX graphics cards. Here's the recent Announce Trailer along with more details:

The fight for freedom begins anew. Experience the award-winning game that has captivated millions of players worldwide with its immersive story, thrilling combat, and mind-bending physics, fully overhauled with full ray tracing, new hand-crafted, physically based textures, enhanced high-poly models, and updated lighting, all in stunning 4K.

Half-Life 2 RTX is a free DLC for all Half-Life 2 owners developed by Orbifold Studios, a collective of passionate, community-assembled developers behind Half-Life 2: VR, Half-Life 2: Remade Assets, Project 17, and Raising the Bar: Redux.

Half-Life 2 RTX uses the latest version of RTX Remix leveraging new RTX Neural Rendering technologies, cutting-edge full ray tracing, accelerated by NVIDIA DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, and NVIDIA Reflex to bring one of the greatest video games of all time to life in a whole new light.