Out of the blue, and in true Valve style, Gabe Newell and team dropped a whole hour long post mortem documentary on the creation of essential classic first person shooter Half-Life. The video goes into detail about the chaotic process, and includes interviews with many of the prominent members of the team. Some tidbits include the fact that pretty much all the textures were created by one artist, Karen Laur, and the game started out as two different games: Prospero, and Quiver.
I actually still own my original boxed copy of the game, which I poured many, many hours of my university free time into. The game took modding to another level, spawning massively popular total conversions and mods like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 1.5, and Science & Industry.
You can buy the full game for a knockdown price, which in another surprise move, just received a substantial patch which adds Steam Deck support, and rolls back from the HD models/textures to the original look of the game.
Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update
The same game you played in 1998 – restored, augmented, and revitalized
We created a new webpage to showcase all the updates in detail, but here’s a quick rundown of the updates to the base game:• Updated graphics settings, including lighting fixes and an actual widescreen field of view
• Controller and Steam Networking support
• Steam Deck support – officially Verified!Also including lots of cool new (or restored) content!
The 25th Anniversary Update includes added content from Half-Life Uplink as well as four (4!) new multiplayer maps. We’ve also restored some content for the true nostalgia-seekers, including original main menu artwork and some early prototype player models from the alpha builds of the game.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/70/view/6941797379568863069
There have also been a slew of further patches to fix various long standing issues, including an animation syncing bug where a monster grabs an NPC without touching it.
I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to describe the game as an essential play for any fans of the FPS genre, or anyone wanting to experience the moment video game narrative storytelling changed forever. If you haven’t already, get the game and play it! And then play the fantastic Valve-supported remake, Black Mesa, which features a more complete third act in the alien Xen world as well as more modern graphics fidelity thanks to the Source Engine.
And yes, Half-Life is now retro…
