Half-Life celebrates 25th Anniversary with new update, game is FREE right now

Valve celebrates the 25th birthday of Half-Life with a new update... a quarter of a century later, while the game is FREE right now.

Half-Life celebrates 25th Anniversary with new update, game is FREE right now
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Can you believe it has been 25 years since Valve released the original Half-Life, which was a game-changer in so many ways when it was released and has now just received a new update... yeah, there's new stuff from Valve for Half-Life. But, I think the best part of this is the awesome Half-Life 25th Anniversary Documentary, which you can watch below:

Valve has updated Half-Life with a nice refresh to the game, with some new features to boot. Valve has introduced a new graphics setting for Half-Life and some new content to make it fresh. The developer has updated the intro to Half-Life and squashed a few bugs in the game, too.

CD exclusives like Half-Life Uplink and Half-Life Further Data, on top of 4 new multiplayer maps, have been introduced into Half-Life. Better yet, Valve has also improved the UI for higher-resolution displays, thrown in official support for the Valve Steam Deck, and added controller support.

Half-Life graphics have been updated, with Valve adding in a widescreen field of view, as well as the option to turn off texture smoothing on GL renders. Half-Life supports software rendering on Linux, with multiple lighting fixes for the GL overbright.

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I remember my Dad driving me into the city here in Adelaide, South Australia, and buying Half-Life back in 1998. It had a profound effect on me as a 15-year-old gamer at the time, driving into the arms of Half-Life 2, which was an incredible sequel.

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In the end, I purchased a $3500+ VR setup (on top of already having a PC worth double that) for Half-Life Alyx, which was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.

Half-Life: Alyx was an incredible ride, but it all started with Half-Life... which is now 25 years old, Wow.

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Anthony joined TweakTown in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of tech products. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

Anthony's PC features Intel's Core i5-12600K paired with the GIGABYTE Z690 AERO-G, Corsair's 32GB DDR4-3200, and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4090 FE. It runs Sabrent's Rocket 4 Plus 4TB with Windows 11 Pro, housed in Lian Li's O11 Dynamic XL, and powered by ASUS's ROG Strix 850W. Accessories include the Logitech G915 Wireless keyboard, Logitech G502X Wireless mouse, and LG C3 48-inch OLED TV 4K 120Hz monitor.

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