A recent update to the digital card game Artifact has some fans hoping for RTX and ray tracing support in Valve's Source 2 engine, which is used for Dota 2 and Half-Life: Alyx.

A tweet from SteamDB creator Pavel Djundik found two references to RTX in the unlikely form of Valve's less popular card game. While far from concrete evidence of ray-tracing support, they are seen as indications that something may be going on behind the scenes with Artifact and the Source 2 engine as a whole.

Two additional strings have been added to the game files: "RTX" and "Raytracing shader.

It is not yet clear what these strings mean for Artifact and Source, or if they mean anything at all. However, this alone is enough to make one expect "Half-Life" to appear: some are hoping for a ray-tracing update for Alyx. Nevertheless, this VR/RTX combo will no doubt be knee-weakening even on high-end PCs.

Others see new hope in a Source 2 port of Valve's popular game.

CS:GO is often mentioned as a possible Source 2 port, but for every rumor pointing to a possible engine upgrade, there are two rumors that the project has been canceled.

In any case, the RTX upgrade needed for Artifact to gain new popularity on Steam is hardly an overhaul, and this reference may imply further machinations by Valve regarding the "Holy Grail" of rendering technology. Nevertheless, it is not dissimilar to a reference to a less-than-stellar feature that is tentatively added to game files and pulled out without much actual use.