Half-Life Mod Seeks To Add Ray Tracing To The Classic Shooter

Half-Life was given a nice coat of fresh paint with the release of Black Mesa a few years ago, but if that overhaul wasn’t enough then some additional ray tracing could bring even more life into the classic shooter.

Half-Life: Ray Traced is a new mod for the Valve-developer shooter which seeks to add path-traced lighting to the entire game. The teaser trailer, which you can see below, does a good job of showing how dramatic these changes can be, transforming the game’s memorable opening into a much gloomier affair, while also bringing out new highlights in some of the game’s outdoor sections.

The developer, sultim_t, previously worked on a similar mod for Serious Sam and is building upon some existing work that was done for ray tracing support for Half-Life. The mod won’t be ready soon, however, with sultim_t writing, “these things, they take time,” on YouTube.

The mod will be made available on sultim_t’s GitHub repository, where many other projects have been hosted. If you’re itching to dive into Half-Life again, Black Mesa is a fantastic remaster of the original shooter, while Half-Life: Alyx is the most recent entry in the series that makes great use of VR.