Half-Life 2 is getting an enormous Twentieth anniversary replace

Half-Life 2 is getting a main replace in celebration of the basic title’s Twentieth anniversary. Along with Steam Workshop help immediately inside the sport, Valve has mounted bugs and restored some content material, added new graphics settings, up to date gamepad controls, and an entire lot extra. You’ll additionally be capable to get the sport without cost on Steam by November 18th at 1PM ET. After that, it would value $9.99.

Valve can be now together with the Episode One and Episode Two expansions with the bottom sport. They’ll be accessible from the Half-Life 2 menu, and Valve says that “you’ll routinely advance to the following enlargement after finishing each.” You’ll additionally be capable to entry the Steam Workshop inside the Extras menu, which suggests you’ll not have to go away the sport to allow mods.

Valve says it additionally made huge updates to Half-Life 2’s maps, which can repair “longstanding bugs, restore content material and options misplaced to time, and enhance the standard of some issues like lightmap decision and fog.” There’s a brand new choice to play with the unique launch day blood and hearth results as nicely, and Valve has up to date Half-Life 2’s gamepad controls to “match” final yr’s Half-Life 1 anniversary replace.

If you wish to entry the older model of Half-Life 2, that’s nonetheless an possibility: you’ll simply must roll again to “a publicly seen Beta department named ‘steam_legacy’” and seize the “Pre-Twentieth Anniversary Construct,” Valve says.

Like with the twenty fifth anniversary celebration for the unique Half-Life, Valve has additionally launched a free documentary about Half-Life 2 which you could watch without cost on YouTube. Right here’s what you may count on, based on the documentary’s YouTube description: “we’ve gotten members of the HL2 staff again to speak in regards to the sport’s growth, how we nearly ran out of cash, what it was like after we had been hacked, what occurred after we had been sued by our writer, the birthplace of Steam, and far more.”

Along with the documentary, Valve has shared movies of outdated demos of the sport — together with one which it deliberate to convey to E3 2022 however determined to not present on the final minute. Valve added 3.5 hours of recent developer commentary inside the sport, too.

And the corporate is printing an expanded second version of the Elevating the Bar e-book in regards to the sport’s growth, which incorporates “the Half-Life 2 growth story, with never-before-seen idea artwork from Episode One and Episode Two, together with concepts and experiments for the third episode that by no means got here to be.” The e-book will return to print in 2025.

Perhaps quickly we’ll get Half-Life 3? Perhaps?