In context: Valve’s debut title, Half-Life, has been named Recreation of the Yr by numerous publications and influenced the childhoods of many players. The corporate sought to commemorate the twenty fifth anniversary of this basic PC title by offering it with some TLC and re-releasing it alongside a documentary on the way it got here to be.
Valve has launched a twenty fifth anniversary replace for Half-Life that packs loads of new content material and quality-of-life modifications, in addition to assist for the corporate’s well-liked Steam Deck handheld console. In case you’re a gamer who’s both too younger or in some way missed the sport that began Valve on its path to changing into one of the vital influential forces in PC gaming, now you can seize a free copy of this late ’90s basic title for a restricted time.
The corporate made the announcement on the Half-Life web site, which has somewhat easter egg for these of you on the market with an intuition to select 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 obtained as a lot consideration lately as many different titles in our catalog, so we thought this milestone was a terrific 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 assist 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 have got upgraded since then,” Valve says. Higher but, the corporate has additionally made the sport work effectively on the Steam Deck and added correct controller assist.
The truth is, the patch notes embrace an extended checklist 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 shifting ahead. The corporate will scale back the visibility of Half-Life: Supply as a option to encourage gamers to play the brand new model, however the outdated recreation will stay out there so the Supply engine group can nonetheless entry the sport belongings.
Content material-wise, the anniversary version of Half-Life now consists of 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 boundaries of the Half-Life engine and embrace character fashions from a retail-exclusive enlargement known as Half-Life: Additional Knowledge.
On high of this repackaging of one of the vital necessary PC video games of all time, Valve teamed up with Secret Tape and summoned the whole unique Half-Life growth group to make an hour-long documentary detailing how and why their challenge 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 possibly can watch right here.
As all the time, there isn’t 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. You probably have but to expertise the Half-Life universe, the whole franchise is at present on sale, together with Half-Life: Alyx.