Half Life 2's 20th Anniversary

[Masterlegodude]

On November 16th, 2004, Valve released Half Life 2
the sequel to the critically acclaimed FPS 'Half Life'
^{(Everyone and their grandmother's grandmother knows what Half Life 2 is, do i even need to explain?)}
And as of writing this post, it is now officially 20 years old!

And to celebrate the occasion, Orbifold Studios put up an official store page on Steam for their Half Life 2 RTX remaster project, Noclick and the Half Life community celebrate with a big "Thank You" to Valve for Half Life 2 and a couple of big projects that were able to happen because of this game's existence, and even Valve themselves are celebrating the occasion by releasing a 2 hour documentary on the entire timeline of Half Life 2's creation straight from the developers themselves!

Additionally, Valve has also released HIGH DEFINITION versions of the original 'GET YOUR FREE TVs!', 'E3 2002', and 'E3 2003' demo videos!

And what's more still, is that Half Life 2 has been updated to have Steam Workshop support where you can download asset replacements or entire campaigns, baked in lightmaps have been updated to be much smoother, removing the ugly looking pixely light spots and shadows, 3.5 hours worth of developer commentary, LDR and HDR fixes across every map, and much more!

And last, but not least, Valve has now merged Lost Coast and Episodes 1 and 2 into base Half Life 2 whilst also making it FREE TO KEEP until Nov. 18th! So if for some reason you still don't own any of these games yet, then now is the best time to do so!


If you want to see the full story of what's going on and what Valve has been up to, you can view all of that on the official website here:
https://www.half-life.com/en/halflife2/20th

[Ad Bot]

[Mr Queeba]

in less than 24 hours post-update a metric forgetload of stuffpost mods have been uploaded to the workshop
we can finally (easily) ruin the game

[Goth77]

still got my original ps2 copy. decay was good times

[P1xel]

hlx soon

[Smashed_Eggs]

hlx soon

disappointed there was no teaser or announcement about a new half life game (3?) on the 16th, i was so convinced they would announce something big for a long time, it's the 20th anniversary after all

[Masterlegodude]

disappointed there was no teaser or announcement about a new half life game (3?) on the 16th, i was so convinced they would announce something big for a long time, it's the 20th anniversary after all

We got a bit of WIP (and cancelled) Episode Three gameplay in the documentary at least

[Unimproved]

not sure which mental illness has gaben experiencing fear in the manner which he admits to, but it seems like a useful one

[Masterlegodude]

not sure which mental illness has gaben experiencing fear in the manner which he admits to, but it seems like a useful one

Most people i've seen talk about that are in agreement that it's some form of autism

[ChexGuy331]

Gotta post some Source engine greats
Advanced AI in action
A Few Good G-Men - Machinima made directly in the SDK, before SFM or even Garry's Mod.

[Dr.Block]

It still holds up :,)

[Masterlegodude]

The mods have been useful, hilarious, and amazing, and the workshop still has so much to catch up on from sites like fps/gamebanana, can't wait to see what insanity has come to the workshop by next year

And speaking of which; This update inspired me to start modding Half Life 2, starting with what is already my magnum opus


Even Mr Queeba has now made his debut into Source modding thanks to this update, and he and i have turned the major human characters into the cast of Red vs Blue (circa the Blood Gulch Chronicles)

[ChexGuy331]

one time a bunch of us played Synergy and I streamed it
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/141163865

[Dr.Block]

It was the sound effect that sold me, A+