Half-Life 2 News

New Half-Life 2 Steam updates hint at something special for 20th anniversary

I shouldn't say this out loud because it feels like I'm jinxing things, but I think Half-Life 3 might actually be getting closer. Combined with some of the hints, leaks, and rumors from the past couple of months, Valve, generally, seems a little more interested in Half-Life these days. First there was the big 25th anniversary celebration for the original game and now, investigating the Steam backend, it looks like Half-Life 2 might be getting the similar birthday treatment. Four years since Half-Life: Alyx and two decades since the last mainline outing for Gordon Freeman, G-Man, and co., we're certainly - still - very ready for Half-Life 3. But some kind of relaunch of the second game wouldn't go amiss, either.

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If Half-Life 3 is coming, the original games need even more attention

We've been here before - for the last 17 years, ever since Half-Life: Episode Two concluded, rumors, speculation, and hope for Half-Life 3 have swirled like the dark energy vortex about the Citadel. Recently, we've seen a few teases, a few hints, that suggest something, maybe, might be on the way. Even if it doesn't arrive imminently, I'm still confident Valve will make Half-Life 3, or at least another Half-Life game, eventually. With that in mind, it feels like time to replay and re-appreciate the original and the first sequel. We've looked at the data - a lot of people who have the Half-Life series in their Steam libraries haven't ever actually booted the games up. But if you got Half-Life, HL2, the Episodes, or any of the expansions in a bundle and you've left them alone, now is the time to take them down from the shelf. There are still, all these years later, some of the most influential FPS games of all time.

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Here are some of the best Steam games most own but too few have played

There are some games it feels like literally everyone has played - or at least heard of. Half-Life. Portal. Left 4 Dead. The list goes on, and on, and on. But despite their popularity and status as PC gaming icons, new data from SteamIDFinder shows that the videogames we call classics too often sit collecting dust in our Steam libraries and, quite honestly, I feel slightly called out right now.

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Project Borealis, the fan-made effort to bring Half-Life 2 Episode 3 to life, returns after years of silence with a new 'Prologue' teaser

The team behind Project Borealis, a fan-made effort to turn former Valve writer Marc Laidlaw's Half-Life 2 Episode 3 synopsis into a playable game, has released a brief new teaser for Project Boreal: Prologue, taking players back to the newly snowed-in streets of Ravenholm...
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Half-Life 2's worst level is suddenly a lot better thanks to RTX

20 years since it was first released, Half-Life 2 remains one of the best single-player FPS games in history. Even as someone who's comparatively skeptical when it comes to Valve's work, I can't deny sections like Route Kanal and, of course, Ravenholm. But there's one part of HL2 that I think is genuinely weak, and exposes, in a very contained space, most of the shooter's flaws. Nova Prospekt is samey and overlong, and relies far too much on HL2's often unexciting weapons and gunplay. But thanks to Half-Life 2 RTX, which has just gotten a new trailer, even this dour part of Gordon Freeman's adventure looks suddenly way better.

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