Half-Life News

Here's Half-Life with ray tracing

modder has taken up the real-time path traced torch of putting ray tracing into the original Half-Life, planning for a release in 2022—that is, this year. Russian modder sultim_t dropped a teaser of how Half-Life with ray tracing looks in action on YouTube, and says they'll release both the full build and source code when it's ready...
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Valve are updating Half-Life and more for Steam Deck

Valve are working to upgrade a number of their more popular games for the Steam Deck, optimising controls and interfaces to play better on their upcoming portable powerhouse, the Steam Deck. The Half-Life series, Dota 2, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive, either already have or will receive upgrades designed to make them "better experiences".

Half-Life: Delta is a singleplayer mod for Half-Life 1 that creator Yuri, aka XF-Alien, has been working on for a dozen years. It's been released on ModDB though yet to appear on Steam workshop, while Yuri just seems glad it's done: "it's not so bad, cuz this mod has been in development hell for twelve (was started in August 2009) years. And now it's finally done."..
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A former Half-Life designer is showing off prototypes and rejected bloodbaths

It's always grand to get a peek behind the gamedev curtain at things that might have been. Former Half-Life level designer Brett Johnson has been digging through his old work, and his memories, to share some early Half-Life prototypes and some ideas that never came to be. Would Half-Life have been a classic if it had gotten the name "Belly Of The Beast"? I dunno, doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well, does it?

You can find all sorts of weird stuff on TikTok these days—including, as it happens, an extremely early prototype of the original Half-Life courtesy of level designer Brett Johnson...
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