Similar to it did with the unique Half-Life final 12 months – celebrating the seminal first-person shooter’s twenty fifth anniversary with a serious replace, a documentary, and a 100% off sale – Valve is celebrating the arguably much more influential Half-Life 2’s twentieth anniversary with, you guessed it, an replace, a documentary, and a 100% off sale.
Valve made the announcement, and detailed the entire modifications, on a brand new web site for the sport. That replace notably consists of the same old mixture of bug fixes and graphical enhancements, a developer’s commentary monitor – a apply that every one Half-Life and Portal video games following the discharge of Half-Life 2 benefited from – in addition to Steam platform stage enhancements within the type of Steam Workshop assist and the brand new Steam recreation recording.
“Each map in Half-Life 2 has been regarded over by Valve stage designers to repair longstanding bugs, restore content material and options misplaced to time, and enhance the standard of some issues like lightmap decision and fog,” Valve particulars on the location. Scroll means down for a way more exhaustive checklist of the entire modifications.
A bigger enhancement to the sport is the inclusion of Half-Life 2’s episodic expansions, Episode 1 and Episode 2. Notably, and sadly, this doesn’t embody any affirmation of a conclusion within the type of the never-released Episode 3, although Valve does converse to its failure to ship that ending within the two-hour documentary.
“We may have shipped it. It wouldn’t have been that onerous,” Valve’s Gabe Newell says, sporting a brand new lewk whereas sending a complete technology of avid gamers right into a darkish spiral. “My private failure was being stumped. I couldn’t work out why Episode 3 was pushing something ahead.”
And, in the event you by some means haven’t by some means ended up with Half-Life 2 in your Steam library over the past 20 years, first … congrats? That appears really arduous to do. Second, you’ll be glad to comprehend it’s at present being provided, upgrades and all, for the low low value of $0.00 till November 18, simply two days away. Add it to your library completely by going right here and clicking the inexperienced Obtain button, and can it to your grandkids.
Talking of downloads, Valve’s anniversary website additionally consists of hyperlinks to historic movies of the sport, comparable to high-quality captures of beforehand unavailable E3 demos, in addition to a number of recent wallpapers and hyperlinks to obtain or take heed to the varied soundtracks.