What simply occurred? Valve’s debut title, Half-Life, has been named Game of the Year by numerous publications and influenced the childhoods of many a gamer. The firm sought to commemorate the twenty fifth anniversary of this traditional PC title by offering it with some TLC and re-releasing it alongside a documentary on the way it got here to be.
Valve on Friday launched a twenty fifth anniversary replace for Half-Life that packs a whole lot of new content material and quality-of-life modifications, in addition to help for the corporate’s in style Steam Deck handheld console. If you are a gamer who’s both too younger or by some means missed the sport that began Valve on its path to turning into one of the vital influential forces in PC gaming, now you can seize a free copy of this late ’90s traditional title for a restricted time.
The firm made the announcement on the Half-Life web site, which has slightly easter egg for these of you on the market with an intuition to choose up the closest crowbar and hit any alien creature that appears prefer it’s about to latch onto somebody’s head.
Half-Life was launched on November 19, 1998, and Valve says “we’re very pleased with what we constructed again then and we stay extraordinarily grateful for the group of gamers who’ve been having fun with it ever since. The sport hasn’t acquired as a lot consideration lately as many different titles in our catalog, so we thought this milestone was an amazing alternative to spruce up the participant expertise and add some enjoyable new methods to play the sport.”
And that it did – the sport now has some much-needed options like help for widescreen screens, software program rendering for Linux customers, and a UI that scales effectively on bigger screens. “We constructed most of these items for 640×480 CRTs and apparently a few of you will have upgraded since then,” Valve says. Better but, the corporate has additionally made the sport work effectively on the Steam Deck and added correct controller help.
In reality, the patch notes embody an extended record of modifications and fixes to gameplay, rendering, multiplayer balancing, engine enhancements for mod makers, and extra. Valve says this model of the sport is the definitive version and as such would be the just one to be supported transferring ahead. The firm will scale back the visibility of Half-Life: Source as a technique to encourage gamers to play the brand new model, however the previous sport will stay accessible so the Source engine group can nonetheless entry the sport belongings.
Content-wise, the anniversary version of Half-Life now contains Half-Life Uplink, a mini-campaign that was initially launched as unique content material on CDs from {hardware} producers and magazines. You additionally get entry to 4 new multiplayer maps that supposedly push the bounds of the Half-Life engine and embody character fashions from a retail-exclusive growth known as Half-Life: Further Data.
On prime of this repackaging of one of the vital vital PC video games of all time, Valve teamed up with Secret Tape and summoned your entire unique Half-Life growth group to make an hour-long documentary detailing how and why their undertaking took the form that it did. And, if you end up wanting extra as you feed your nostalgia for this seminal PC title, degree designer Dario Casali has made a whole playthrough and commentary you may watch right here.
As all the time, there is not any information about Half-Life 3 for the eternally hopeful amongst us. One can all the time replay the wonderful Black Mesa remake, and yours really undoubtedly will this weekend. If you will have but to expertise the Half-Life universe, your entire franchise is presently on sale, together with Half-Life: Alyx.
