Admit it: you were just waiting for an excuse to start playing Half-Life 2 again.
50,000 Steam users are revolting against the Combine this weekend and are letting the crowbar do the talking in the legendary shooter classic. This has two simple reasons:
- Valve is currently giving away Half-Life 2 – but only for a short time
- A big free update with numerous improvements has also been released.
Why all the fun? In fact, Half-Life 2 is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary; Gordon Freeman’s second adventure was released on November 16, 2004. But let’s start from the beginning.
This is how you get Half-Life 2 for free on Steam
Yes, you can get Half-Life 2 for free on Steam right now. If the legendary shooter isn’t in your game library yet, you should get to it: you still have until November 18, 2024 at 7 p.m. Europe time.
Just call for it the Steam page for Half-Life 2 and add the game to your library for 0 dollars.
To be fair, Half-Life 2 is otherwise not too expensive; the 20-year-old video game milestone now costs around 10 dollars without a discount. But hey, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth – especially if he’s still playing as fantastically in 2024 as he did 20 years ago.
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Half-Life 2 RTX: Ravenholm has never looked so good
Half-Life 2 is getting a new update – 20 years after release
You’ve already finished Half-Life 2, but there’s still a good reason to take another look at the Valve shooter. To mark the occasion, the development team has given Half-Life 2 a massive update that brings with it a few significant improvements.
What’s inside? Since all the innovations here would go beyond any scope, you will find a selection here and a detailed list on page 2 of this article:
- The Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and 2 expansions are now directly linked to the main game and can be selected directly in the main menu.
- The Steam Workshop is now integrated directly into Half-Life 2 and you no longer have to leave the game to access desired modifications.
- Not only have numerous graphical errors been improved, Half-Life 2 has even been given new graphics settings.
- Gamepad and Steam Deck controls have been improved and adapted to the remastered version of Half-Life 1.
So it’s no wonder that there are over 50,000 players at the same time this weekend Started Half-Life 2 – how SteamDB reported. If you’re interested in the complex origins of the legendary Valve shooter, there’s another treat: A brand new documentary on YouTube looks back on 20 years of Half-Life 2.
If you would rather look into the future, then we can of course also help you. For example, with Project Borealis there is something like a Half-Life 3, but it is produced by fans. You can find out what’s currently in store by clicking on the links above.
And then there’s the real Half-Life 3, which is still a long time coming…
