Valve’s first-person puzzler, Portal, is unquestionably one of the greatest games of all time. What could make it better? Well, an excellent sequel, of course — but we were already blessed with one. In November, Portal is getting an RTX update that’ll add real-time ray tracing, new textures and models, and much more. It’ll also be free to those who own Portal on Steam. Oh, and it looks pretty fantastic.
It goes without saying that Portal, released in 2007, is well loved by the gaming community. First bundled in the also excellent The Orange Box, Portal is a well-designed puzzle game with a rich sense of humor and even richer cake. The game reached incredible heights despite its short length, creating memes that lasted for years.
But it has been around for a while, and its lower-resolution textures are due for a brushing up. That’ll happen this November, when Portal with RTX brings ray tracing to one of Valve’s best. Coming from Nvidia’s Lightspeed Studios, the prettier Portal will include ray-traced lighting, shadows, and global illumination. Light will scatter in fog and smoke more realistically, and the textures are higher resolution than ever. It’s also getting DLSS 3 support.
“Every frame of gameplay is upgraded with stunning full ray tracing, new, hand-crafted hi-res physically based textures, and new, enhanced high-poly models evocative of the originals. In Portal with RTX, full ray tracing transforms each level, enabling light to bounce and be affected by the scene’s geometry and materials.”
Portal like never before
The above video for Portal with RTX gives you examples of the ray tracing upgrade and changes. Reflections on metal and in the water are looking mighty fine. You can also notice the updated textures, and some of the new changes such as the glow of the weighted storage cubes.
The Portal with RTX update is set to launch this November, but a more accurate release date is unknown.
