An RTX-enabled remaster of Valve's 2007 puzzle masterpiece Portal, aptly named Portal With RTX, is out now. Valve doesn't seem to have had much of a hand in it, given that Nvidia takes credit for both development and publishing it, but it's a fun way to revisit a classic with a new coat of paint. It's been automatically granted to all owners of the original on Steam, meaning that the average gamer will more than likely be able to download it for free and try it out. I played through the first few levels myself, up to the point where you get the dual portal gun, and I have to say from hands-on experience that the visual changes are stunning. Faint, glowing particles swirl around your portals, which now reflect and distort onto nearby surfaces. Most assets, including the portal gun, the weighted cubes, and the uniform white panels of the test chambers seem to have gotten new textures entirely, enabling the improved lighting tech to wash over them and expose every little scratch and speck of dirt.
Is it strictly necessary? Well, no- at times it feels more like a tech demo than anything else with the sheer graphical indulgence on display. At the end of the day, though, Portal is still Portal, and it's worth a look for anyone with a decently beefy PC who wants to discover the halls of Aperture Science anew.
