Valve celebrates Half-Life’s 25th birthday with an epic party

Image: Valve

Cameron Faulkner
(he/him) is Polygon’s business editor. He started covering technology and video gaming in 2013, and moved from The Verge in 2023.

Half-Life will certainly transform 25 years of ages on Nov. 19, and Valve is assessing this landmark with an unexpected, yet totally should have quantity of splendor. The workshop’s very first game is not just free to download and maintain, yet it simply obtained a large upgrade filled with enhancements, in addition to pest solutions that have actually been socializing in the code for the previous quarter century.

This variation of Half-Life is currently validated on Steam Deck, full with gamepad setups and online play, and has actually upgraded graphics setups consisting of HUD UI scaling for modern-day displays. Valve cheekily notes, “We built most of this stuff for 640×480 CRTs and apparently some of you have upgraded since then.”

In regards to material enhancements, the upgrade brings Half-Life Uplink to a modern-day target market. This mini project initially debuted on disc, packed with specific publications, and with equipment like audio cards. There’s brought back material, as well, like the initial Valve logo design introduction, plus some multiplayer maps and skins that were consisted of in a CD cost retail in the late 90s. Valve degree developers also constructed 4 brand-new multiplayer maps that exist in the brand-new upgrade.

Even much better than a totally free, newly upgraded game is a one-hour docudrama on just how the game was made to clean everything down. To inform the story of simply exactly how Half-Life integrated in the late 90’s, Valve joined Danny O’Dwyer of Secret Tape. You can view that over if you’d such as.

Lastly, Valve is releasing a lot of wonderful wallpapers, numerous of which include our favored crowbar-wielding researcher, Gordon Freeman. Check out every one of this details, consisting of an extensive checklist of solutions, over at the revamped Half-Life website. During this event, all various other Half-Life titles are marked down.

 

Source: Polygon