Half-Life 2 is officially 20 years old, and developer Valve is using the milestone as an opportunity to celebrate the millions of players in the HL2 community who have been playing it (or discovering it, or even re-discovering Half-Life 2) since its launch on November 16, 2004.
Valve has gone as far as creating a website detailing all of the improvements the update to Half-Life 2 brings, with both Episode One and Episode Two included, an awesome developers commentary with some of the original Half-Life 2 developers coming back for a huge 3.5-hour new behind-the-scenes commentary on Half-Life 2.
Popular Now: DLSS 5 has been modded into Skyrim, and it definitely transforms character facesOh, and did we mention that Half-Life 2 is FREE until November 18 at 1PM ET, after which it will cost $9.99. Here's the rundown of what to expect from the Half-Life 2 update, while Valve's dedicated website goes into a huge (and fantastic) deep dive (of one of my favorite games of all time).
- Episodes One and Two are in the box: Half-Life 2 now includes the complete Episode One and Episode Two expansions along with the base game. They're accessible from the main menu, and you will automatically advance to the next expansion after completing each one.
- Developers Commentary for Half-Life 2: While the Episodes have always had commentary tracks, the base game never did... until now. We got the team back to record three and a half hours of new behind-the-scenes commentary for Half-Life 2.
- Integrated Steam Workshop support: Browse, install, and play user-created content for Half-Life 2 without ever leaving the game. Look for it in the Extras menu!
- Bug fixes and new graphics options: Visual pops, missing sprites, and mismatched lighting introduced in updates over the years has been scrubbed away. And we've added some settings to push visual fidelity of Half-Life 2 farther than was allowed in the original release.
