Summary
- Half-Life 2 RTX is launching its first playable demo tomorrow.
- But not everyone is excited to try it, arguing that the new lighting ruins the original game’s atmosphere.
- Ravenholm has been especially contentious due to how bright the remix is.
Half-Life 2 RTX Remix, which gives the game a ‘facelift’ through remastered assets and realistic, next-gen lighting, is getting its first playable demo tomorrow. But not everyone is convinced that this overhaul is an improvement.
A big complaint levied against the remix is that the new lighting strips back the game’s atmosphere. Take u/Old-Camp3962’s popular Reddit post, which attracted over 1,300 upvotes by simply stating that the mod “completely ruins the game’s artstyle”. Like many, they used Ravenholm as an example. In the original game, the town is dimly lit with shadows swallowing interiors whole, lending to its horror tone. In the remix, the town is brightly lit, peeling away the carefully handcrafted ambience.
“We All Go To Ravenholm Now”: What Half-Life Fans Think
“The lighting and what it tried to convey has been lost,” reads one comment on the trailer, as pointed out by u/Outrageous-Spend2733. “From dark and gloomy to eye wateringly bright. Why. Was so excited for this but alas this is a step backwards.”
It would benefit from a more conservative use of the ray tracing features. In some scenes in the demo, when used in moderation it looks good, but in other parts lights have been made too bright to show off the cool shadows — u/Daigonik.
“It’s like the style, soul and atmosphere has been completely ripped out and replaced with nothing. We all go to Ravenholm now, it’s bright and cheerful,” another jeers.
“The more we go towards a hyper-realistic approach to lighting in video game[s], the more we abandon singular art directions,” u/IngloriousOmen explains. “HL2’s lack of lights in certain places ([Ravenholm] in this example) was not a technical flaw, but an artistic choice, and HL2 RTX negates this choice as if its developers didn’t understand the point of lighting.”
But it’s not just the bright lights that fans are upset with; others note that the huge clouds of smoke completely obscure vital parts of the game, including Ravenholm’s introduction. As you wade your way into the town centre, you find a raging inferno engulfing corpses and debris, with shambling headcrab zombies in the streets. Atop a balcony stands Father Grigori, the shining light in this dingy town, but in the RTX remix, you can’t see him for the smoke.
Related
Half-Life 2 Is Proof We Should Stop Slapping RTX On Old Games
RTX overhauls do little more than gut classic games’ art styles.
“There is too much smoke everywhere,” u/Wikot235 put it simply. “Sometimes, you can’t really see what is happening, all because of excessive smoke particle use when anything happens. Is it realistic? Probably yeah. Is it fun? No.”
Granted, there are a couple of things to factor in here: a) this is a tech demo, and b) this isn’t the final release. So, maybe things will be improved before the final launch given the influx of feedback from the community, or perhaps it’ll stay as is. At least it’s more faithful than Portal RTX, eh?
- Released
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November 16, 2004
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence