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Steam is offering Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 + 2, without spending a dime in celebration of the sport’s twentieth anniversary until Monday, November 18. Valve has even gone thus far as to create a totally brand-new website that features details on QoL fixes and updates together with a brand-new two-hour documentary featuring interviews with the developers while revisiting the events when an early construct got leaked online and more. They’ve also re-released the E3 2002+2003 demo videos, and the SIGGRAPH 2000 “Free TVs” demo video.
Valve has pulled out all of the stops for those wanting to walk down memory lane ahead of the launch of the Half-Life 2 RTX Remix project. Apart from offering Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 + 2, that are included in the only download now, without spending a dime, there are also latest extras included in the sport for game recording and Steam Workshop support for user-created content. The link for the brand new website is listed below and the link to grab the free game is here, and despite all that’s mentioned there may be rather more to be found on the brand new website.
Per the latest website:
Updated Game Content
“Every map in Half-Life 2 has been looked over by Valve level designers to repair longstanding bugs, restore content and features lost to time, and improve the standard of a couple of things like lightmap resolution and fog:
- Fixed pops, holes on the planet, fading-out and disappearing objects across the sport.
- Rebalanced the lighting across Half-Life 2 to account for twiddling with HDR on or off, using the unique release as reference.
- Cleaner, smoother horizon lines because of latest radial fog!
- Added higher-resolution lightmaps across the sport!
- Removed green glow from the G-Man model’s eyes within the opening of the sport, and restored the reflective glint as seen in the unique release.
- Fixed missing grass sprites and blacked-out models throughout the sport!
Updated Graphics Settings
- Select either the unique launch day blood and fire effects, or those created for the episodes, when playing the Half-Life 2 base game!
- Play with only the best detail models in High Quality mode!
- Get smoother lightmap shadows at Very High shader detail, because of latest bicubic lightmap filtering!
Gamepad, Input, and Steam Deck Updates
- Gamepad controls have been updated to match the Half-Life 1 anniversary update.
- Aim Assistance has gotten an overhaul making it feel higher to make use of, and there are more configuration options available. Aim Assistance may be enabled individually for gamepad or mouse/keyboard input. The quantity of assistance may be tuned up and down, and it’s now not tied to a skill setting. Need to play on Hard with high aim assist, or Easy with it off? Knock yourself out.
- The Steam Deck fundamental menu has been updated with all of today’s additions including the Episodes, Workshop, and latest input configuration. The Steam Deck version of the fundamental menu may even appear while you play Half-Life 2 on a PC running Big Picture Mode.
