Half-Life 2 is free on Steam right now. Includes eps 1 and 2.

For you heathens who haven't played it.

Steam/Valve is celebrating its 20th anniversary.

20 years of no Half-Life 3 too. Damn you, Valve.

People should hurry up and play these before HL3 arrives.

Here are some archived clips "remastered" for modern times:

Added note:

This anniversary update fixes bugs and adds some minor new stuff in the game.

Also, owning this game means you'll get to play the HL2 RTX update when it comes out.

Already grabbed. More about correcting a mistake, really. Lost my username and password for a previous Steam account I had which I played both HL 1 & 2 on. Thought about buying them for my current account, but never made the jump; I was kinda already done with both games.

But you can't beat free, so I might work up the mood again the future.

This is arguably the best VR game.

Better than Alyx and feels like playing it for the first time again, the way it was suppose to be played.

@R4gn4r0k: lol!

Amazing how good it still looks, even today.

Good to know.

In Episode 3 the player would have been able to make ice-bridges.

https://x.com/HL_Alyx_NoVR/status/1857559258977677398

@uninspiredcup: This has been repurposed in Valve's new shooter, Deadlock. But it would've been cool to see that in an actual HL3 game. No pun intended.

This offer alone is better than any and all of the corrupt, publicly-traded, Chinese-state-owned Tencent-Epic Game Store freebies 😋

Source engine is hands down one of the all-time greatest game engines.

Looks good, great textures, and runs on almost anything.

So like Epic Mickey?

@uninspiredcup: It's interesting how elements from other Valve games made it into Half Life Ep 3.

Same thing with Rockstar: they put elements from Manhunt in GTA SA and Max Payne 3 in GTA V.

@R4gn4r0k: Portal 2 seems to be an evolution of this idea, most likely used it creatively better with it's bridges and paint.

Alyx could have used something creative like this. When ignore the VR aspect, actually not a lot of new ideas going on. Halflife 2 is ultimately the better VR game regardless of it coming from a mod, or age.

Gabe seems to have forgotten how to count.

Can't believe that Half-Life 2 is 20 years old now. Still one of the best fps ever made. Still angry that Valve never bothered to make Half-Life 3.

I kinda sorta blame Valve's pursuit of innovation. While their games are innovative, it came biting them down when it came to half-life.

Then steam and dota came around and they just became somewhat complacent.

Gallery

Still got my original case that I bought at launch back in 2004. I had completely forgot this game came with friggin FIVE CDs in sleeves. I must have lost one of the sleeves since I have one of the disks in a case. lmao Times have changed. Looking at the specs too. Wowsa!

Just recently played HL2 and the episodes. It's truly a brilliant game. Fucking hate that we'll never have closure.

Already did my yearly playthrough. January is close, though.

That's nice and all but I already own The Orange Box, so this does nothing for me. And unlike these old folks of PC in SW, I don't share the deep love for the HL games. HL wasn't that impressed me at the time, (still a fun game to play today standards) that honor will always go to Crysis.