To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Valve reunited the original Half-Life 2 development team and introduced some much-needed updates to the game. The game is free this weekend, in addition to a ton of BTS content being released.
Half-Life 2 includes the Episode 1 and Episode 2 expansions within the base game, now accessible from the main menu. You can get it for free here.
I highly recommend checking out the game’s 20th anniversary website here. There’s also plenty of scrap footage from other Half-Life projects here.
new half life 2 update
Updated game content
Fixed popping, holes in the world, fading out and disappearing objects throughout the game. Using the original release as a reference, we rebalanced the lighting throughout Half-Life 2 to account for playing with HDR on or off. Cleaner, smoother horizons thanks to new radial fog! Added high-resolution lightmaps throughout the game. Removed the green glow from the G-Man model’s eyes in the game’s opening and restored the reflective glow seen in the original release. Fixed missing grass sprites and blacked out models throughout the game.
Update graphics settings
When playing the Half-Life 2 base game, choose between the original release day blood and fire effects or the effects created for the episode. Play with only the most detailed models in high quality mode. Get smoother lightmap shadows with much higher shader detail thanks to new bicubic lightmap filtering.
Gamepad/Steam Deck Update
Gamepad controls have been updated for the Half-Life 1st Anniversary Update. Aim Assist has been overhauled to improve its usability and provide more configuration options. Aim assist can be enabled separately for gamepad or mouse/keyboard input. The amount of assist can be adjusted up or down and is no longer tied to skill settings. Do you want to play hard with high aim assist or turn it off and play easy? Knock yourself out. The Steam Deck main menu has been updated with all of today’s additions, including Episodes, Workshops, and new input configurations. The Steam Deck version’s main menu also appears when playing on a PC running Half-Life 2.
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