Valve has been holding on to a special surprise for Half-Life 2 fans to celebrate the game crossing its 20th birthday. Today, the company shipped the 20th Anniversary Update for the iconic Gordon Freeman adventure from 2004, combining the base experience and all episodes into one, bringing developer commentary, Steam Workshop support, and much more. Adding to all that, the game is completely free to claim on Steam right now too.
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Valve even made a nice web page with fun animated characters for it (they’re just video loops). Definitely a nice surprise for those of us who’ve already played the game a million times, and for those of us who haven’t yet for some reason and can now claim the game for free. This update also fixes some more bugs, adds a ton of new graphics settings, allows you to choose between different styles for certain visual effects, aim assist for controller users has been massively updated, and so much more. For a 20 year old game, such a free update is not something that happens very often, so good on Valve for doing this.
I can barely believe it’s been 20 years, and that we still have no conclusion or even continuation to the story that so abruptly ended with Episode Two. I honestly doubt we’ll ever going to see a Half-Life 3 or even an Episode Three, simply because at this point the expectations would be so bonkers high there’s no way Valve could meet them. On top of that, why waste time, money, and possibly reputation and goodwill on Half-Life 3, when you can just sit on the couch and watch the Steam gravy train roll into the station?
Because that’s a hell of a lot of gravy.
Valve does release a banger game from time to time, to remind people they aren’t just a middleman in the PC game distribution business but also a game publisher. For example, they did release Half-Life: Alyx after Episode Two. They just don’t feel like releasing Half-Life 3 or even an Episode Three.
They need to start with the Source engine which is now horribly outdated (the last release was 9 years ago). Yeah, the physics in it is great but in terms of lighting it’s leagues behind modern engines.
What sets Source 2 apart is that the smoke, water and rain effects (CS2) are crazy good. I’ve not seen anything like that in any AAA game. Valve programmers are underrated geniuses when it comes to getting value out of old technology. Source 1 was probably the best Direct3D 9 graphics engine (rivaled only by CryEngine), Source 2 is probably the best looking Direct3D 11 graphics engine.
They could always release a Half-Life 3 or an Episode Three based on the Half-Life: Alyx engine, they just don’t feel like so.
kurkosdr,
Easy money in the middle man business killed off valve’s creative side. 🙁
Half-Life Alyx looked decent and I might have played it if not for the forced VR. I get that selling the VR experience was the whole point of HL Alyx, but I still had no interest in buying or playing VR. Apparently there’s now a mod that removes the VR requirements. Of course I would prefer the game to officially support standard desktops, but still I wonder if this mod makes the game worth looking at again and if everything works on linux.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/04/half-life-alyx-is-now-fully-playable-without-vr-hardware/
The fact they released a critically-acclaimed game 4.5 years ago means they still have a creative side, they just don’t feel like exercising it that often because middleman money is easier.
kurkosdr,
I doubt most of the original team is still around. They bought a 3d game studio in 2018. I don’t follow the industry much, but I’m guessing it’s those devs that built Alyx.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/valve-acquires-small-but-scrappy-game-studio-campo-santo
I had heard that the reason Valve produced Alyx wasn’t because they actually wanted to develop games, but that they wanted a killer title that would sell VR. They clearly could have sold more copies on the desktop, but the game was always intended to be marketing for VR. All of their VR headset bundles include Alyx:
https://store.steampowered.com/valveindex
Valve has always tried to innovate in all their games. They note on the documentary they released for this that the issue with Half-Life 3 is that they didn’t know how to make it different enough to Half-Life 2.
Parodper,
There’s so much they could do. Technology has come a long way since HL2 and and even Alyx. Physics played a cool role in HL2, but now they’d be less constrained by hardware limitations. There would be the opportunity to have much larger battles. Technically they could make it more open world (although I am partial to linear storytelling). HL2 had NPCs working “on the rails”, which was ok but they could do so much better today. Characters AI could be far more adaptable and less scripted than before not only in terms of what they say, but being able to evolve and help you. Both enemies and allies would be more intelligent. They could learn how to solve problems without using so many scripted events and the story could unfold in unique ways. Not only are there many opportunities for novel mechanics, but for stories too. Normally I’m not really a fan of rebooting a franchise ad nauseam, but HL2 was never finished and ends on an unsatisfying cliff hanger. Narratively it still needs a sequel.
A sequel would be great for fan service, but they already have a more profitable business model…. And if they avoid the temptation to resort to modern business models like subscriptions and micro-transactions that players hate, it’s even less profitable. They’re just not a game studio anymore and they probably can’t make the numbers justify their investment.
I guess outsourcing might be the best chance to see one? Surely other game studios would love to buy/rent the HL IP…but I also see how that could wreck the franchise like Disney does.
@Alfman
all you described are basically incremental improvements. HL2 was an absolute game changer when it came out, compared to competing games available on the market at this point in time.
There is a reason it won so many GOTY awards.
Valve is looking for another major breakthrough, and after HL2 they were mostly out of ideas.
You mention the opportunities for novel mechanics. but what exactly would those be?
Other than advancements in graphical fidelity, and maybe ai , i’d be hard pressed to name anything the gaming industry has significantly improved upon since then (except for making money via microtransactions). If anything i’d say they have regressed.
[email protected],
all you described are basically incremental improvements. HL2 was an absolute game changer when it came out, compared to competing games available on the market at this point in time.
…
Valve is looking for another major breakthrough, and after HL2 they were mostly out of ideas.
You mention the opportunities for novel mechanics. but what exactly would those be?
All of it was and is incremental though and it still is with a few new ideas here and there and that’s all they need with HL3. Developers keep pushing technological boundaries and Valve could do great things using modern hardware. For example physics simulation has come a very long way since HL2…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJSADKf2150
I don’t believe for one second that there was no room for HL3 to innovate if they wanted.. AI opens up tons of revolutionary potential. Physics engines have tons of potential. Not just making games have more visual fidelity, but improving the actual gameplay too. You know how popular gmod is, well take that and revolutionize it by adding generative AI There are tons of untapped opportunities for games to peruse. HL3 could be one of them, I don’t see many legitimate reasons Valve couldn’t do more with HL3, saying they’re out of ideas seems like a bad excuse. Heck even small underfunded independent teams are creating novel content for “the backrooms” and “SCP”, That’s the kind of creativity that would really make HL3 shine adding new dimensions to the game. There have been plenty of very good opportunities for HL3, but we have to acknowledge it’s just not what Valve does anymore. They found a better business model and moved on. IMHO this is the best explanation for why HL3 died.
Fans would love a HL3, but business-wise there’s probably not enough profit in it for Valve to make it happen. 🙁
You can also get Portal 1 for just $1: https://store.steampowered.com/sub/469/
A joke I heard regarding why there will be no Half-Life 3: With Half-Life and Half-Life 2 we now have Full-Life. because 0.5+0.5 is 1. So making a third one makes no sense.
darkhog,
Hmm. Halflife represents an exponential decay over time. Even if 0.5^X + 0.5^Y did equal 1 in the 2000/2010s, it stands to reason that they no longer equal 1 today because X and Y keep growing over time. The addition of a new halflife is needed to add back up to 1.
Maybe worth sending Gabe Newell a memo…
you can always get “greater than life”
It’s also the anniversary for the first game where the steam peddleware was a requirement to be able to play it.
Imo, steam’s future is a greater risk for pc gaming than firefox’s is to the linux desktop – people are demonstrably less locked into their browser than they are in the gaming ecosystem.
Yup. Everyone hated Steam with a passion in those days. On release day no one could play the damn thing even though you had the game right there on the physical DVD because the service was buggy and hell and was completely overwhelmed..
There’s a gravity gun you can use [but not on mobile browsers] at the bottom of the page. And even some easter eggs related to it!
samueldr,
I didn’t see it the first time. That’s pretty cool. It’s almost the exact same effect as an object manipulation game I wrote in HTML+JS for my kids several years ago. They loved to fill up the page with huge piles of objects! Although in that case the objects had more interactive properties. It’s neat that their page has this 🙂