Identical to it did with the unique Half-Life final yr – celebrating the seminal first-person shooter’s twenty fifth anniversary with a significant 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 all the modifications, on a brand new web site for the sport. That replace notably consists of the standard mixture of bug fixes and graphical enhancements, a developer’s commentary observe – a follow that each one Half-Life and Portal video games following the discharge of Half-Life 2 benefited from – in addition to Steam platform degree enhancements within the type of Steam Workshop assist and the brand new Steam sport recording.
“Each map in Half-Life 2 has been regarded over by Valve degree 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 method down for a way more exhaustive listing of all the 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 embrace any affirmation of a conclusion within the type of the never-released Episode 3, although Valve does communicate 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 era of avid gamers right into a darkish spiral. “My private failure was being stumped. I couldn’t determine why Episode 3 was pushing something ahead.”
And, should you one way or the other haven’t one way or the other ended up with Half-Life 2 in your Steam library during the last 20 years, first … congrats? That appears truly exhausting to do. Second, you’ll be glad to understand it’s at the moment being supplied, 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 web site additionally consists of hyperlinks to historic movies of the sport, comparable to high-quality captures of beforehand unavailable E3 demos, in addition to a bunch of latest wallpapers and hyperlinks to obtain or hearken to the assorted soundtracks.