Oof, think about not blinking for half a decade. My eyes shiver on the thought. But that is what the NPCs of Half-Life 2 have been struggling. The dry eye epidemic was first reported to Valve’s GitHub repo again in 2014 and since then it seems solely a choose few have felt the enjoyment of smashing their eyelids shut. But after nearly 5 lengthy years, City 17’s tortured residents can lastly blink once more, due to a small official update.
Blinking in Half-Life 2 ceased shortly after the Steampipe replace 5 years in the past, when Valve moved all games on the Source engine to a brand new distribution system. Key characters would nonetheless blink if advised to throughout cutscenes, however the regular NPCs strolling about now not had the power to close their eyes naturally. This difficulty affected all Source-based entries within the Half-Life sequence, together with Episode One, Episode Two, tech demo Lost Coast and kinda-remake Half-Life: Source.
A disturbed metropolis of thousand-yard stares may be completely in line with the city dystopia of Half-Life 2, nevertheless it nonetheless wanted a repair. It’s a type of daft wee issues that you simply most likely don’t discover till you’re advised (we didn’t) nevertheless it’s correct bizarre when you do. People are imagined to blink, and it’s tremendous unnerving after they don’t.
With a game as massive as Half-Life 2, in fact there have been unofficial fixes floating round. But it’s good to see Valve lastly put this difficulty to mattress. I’ve simply had a wee pop again into Black Mesa East to verify and, in addition to breaking my very own copy with a decade of modding nonsense, it seems to be like everybody’s again to blinking as regular. Job properly accomplished, everybody.
Yesterday’s replace additionally fixes some fairly extra vital points. Missing NPC sounds, a save-game hitching downside and an issue the place Steam VR was operating when it shouldn’t be – all these have been patched up on this comparatively tiny replace.
