Valve’s seminal shooter Half-Life 2 is now 20 years previous and to have a good time, the corporate has launched a brand new documentary alongside an enormous replace to the sport itself.
Half-Life 2 launched on November 16, 2004. Now, 20 years later, Valve has up to date the landmark first-person shooter and added new options, mounted previous bugs, improved some visuals, added extra choices, and built-in the Steam Workshop into the basic sport. And if you happen to by some means don’t personal Half-Life 2, effectively, it’s free to seize over the weekend.
Maybe the most important new addition to the 2004 shooter as a part of this replace is that Misplaced Coast (a small free side-game), Episode 1, and Episode 2 are actually included as a part of the complete Half-Life 2 package deal, so you’ll be able to play all of those video games inside Half-Life 2.
Talking of Misplaced Coast, ever since Valve launched that small expertise it has included developer commentary in its video games. Nonetheless, Half-Life 2 lacked this characteristic, and that’s now been rectified with this replace. Valve received the ol’ gang again collectively and recorded practically 4 hours of commentary for the FPS. In addition they did a giant documentary about Half-Life 2 and spilled the beans on Episode 3‘s improvement and cancellation, too.
One other large characteristic included on this replace, alongside improved gamepad controls and auto-aim, is the inclusion of Steam Workshop assist. This can make it simpler than ever so as to add new ranges, weapons, and mods to the extraordinarily moddable PC sport. There’s mainly 20 years’ value of mods on the market that may now be migrated to the Workshop and made simpler than ever to entry.
Valve additionally up to date a ton of smaller elements of Half-Life 2, together with fixing previous bugs, including new graphical choices for blood splatter, tweaking HDR settings, and extra. Fortunately, if you happen to don’t like these adjustments or have a mod that depends on the previous model, Valve isn’t eradicating the OG HL2 from Steam. You may nonetheless obtain it and luxuriate in all of your mods and previous reminiscences.
And better of all, Valve has made Half-Life 2 (which now contains all of the Episodes) completely free for the following three days. You might have till November 18 to seize Half-Life 2 on Steam for $0 and it is best to. It’s among the finest video games ever made, and the mods alone will maintain you busy for the following 20 years.
If this appears acquainted, that’s as a result of again in November 2023, Valve did an identical large Anniversary replace for the unique Half-Life to have a good time 25 years of the franchise. Subsequent up, Portal got here out in 2007. I hope Valve has some enjoyable deliberate for that anniversary, too!
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