Valve’s seminal shooter Half-Life 2 is now twenty years previous and to have fun, 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 traditional recreation. And should you by some means don’t personal Half-Life 2, nicely, 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 at the moment are included as a part of the complete Half-Life 2 package deal, so you possibly can 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. Nevertheless, Half-Life 2 lacked this function, and that’s now been rectified with this replace. Valve obtained the ol’ gang again collectively and recorded practically 4 hours of commentary for the FPS. Additionally they did an enormous documentary about Half-Life 2 and spilled the beans on Episode 3‘s growth and cancellation, too.
One other massive function included on this replace, alongside improved gamepad controls and auto-aim, is the inclusion of Steam Workshop help. This can make it simpler than ever so as to add new ranges, weapons, and mods to the extraordinarily moddable PC recreation. 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, should you 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 subsequent three days. You’ve gotten till November 18 to seize Half-Life 2 on Steam for $0 and it’s best to. It’s probably the greatest video games ever made, and the mods alone will maintain you busy for the subsequent 20 years.
If this appears acquainted, that’s as a result of again in November 2023, Valve did an identical massive Anniversary replace for the unique Half-Life to have fun 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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