Half-Life is undoubtedly one of the crucial pivotal video video games to ever launch, redefining the sci-fi style and shooters alike. Valve’s debut FPS smashed information left and proper, persevering with to dominate as one of many developer’s hottest video games a long time later. Because the sci-fi shooter celebrates its Twenty fifth birthday, Valve is releasing a brand-new anniversary replace with a mind-boggling quantity of contemporary content material for followers. For those who haven’t performed shortly, or ever, that is your name to.
Half-Life maintains an ideal 10/10 score on Steam over 20 years after its preliminary 1998 launch, with 1000’s of overwhelmingly constructive opinions and to this date, numerous lively gamers. The FPS recreation is greater than an icon among the many PC group, prompting numerous mods and fan spin-offs all through the years. This weekend marks the shooter’s Twenty fifth anniversary, and Valve is celebrating its debut recreation’s birthday with an enormous new replace.
The replace introduces Uplink, Valve’s 1999 Half-Life demo, to the principle recreation’s obtain. “Initially launched as a CD unique for magazines and {hardware} producers,” Valve writes, “this mini-campaign was constructed by the Half-Life group proper after the sport went gold.” The demo expertise, which was many gamers’ first with Half-Life, now comes alongside the principle recreation.
Valve’s official stage designers have crafted 4 new multiplayer maps, additionally coming with the anniversary replace. Contamination, Pool Celebration, Disposal, and Rocket Frenzy every function totally different elements of Black Mesa, from a contaminated waste facility to its decaying orbital satellite tv for pc launch facility. The developer has rebalanced multiplayer usually, making now a greater time than ever to discover contemporary maps with buddies.
The whole recreation now appears to be like identical to it did in 1998, however on a contemporary monitor. Valve’s new replace brings lighting fixes, together with GL Overbright assist, in addition to a widescreen discipline of view and the choice to disable texture smoothing on the GL renderer. Linux gamers can be comfortable to study that Half-Life now comes with animated water, crisp colours, and unfiltered textures on their working system.
For those who’re a Steam Deck stan like I’m, then you could discover that the replace’s finest information is its official verified standing. That’s proper, Valve has lastly examined and reworked its recreation by itself handheld system in order that it runs completely. This additionally means higher controller and Steam Networking, too. Valve says you possibly can invite your mates or be part of video games “immediately with no fuss.”
Gamers with increased display screen resolutions get to expertise the sport in crispy 4k now, as Valve’s replace reworks the “complete UI to scale at bigger display screen sizes.” The brand new and improved decision accompanies Half-Life’s return of its beloved authentic foremost menu art work, music, and the long-lasting intro video. The sport now looks like a nostalgic throwback to its 1998 version, however higher.
Half-Life is free to maintain for a restricted time on Steam, too, making this the right time to hop into the midst of Black Mesa’s chaos and expertise the PC recreation that can proceed to outline a long time to return. With new content material, new outdated content material, and the whole lot in between, Valve has breathed life into its critically acclaimed shooter as soon as extra.
Half-Life patch notes – Twenty fifth anniversary replace – Friday, November 17, 2023
You may view the Twenty fifth-anniversary replace’s full particulars, together with pictures of the newly added content material, on Half-Life’s official web site. Verify under for a handy bullet-point listing of the replace’s greater highlights, from its new multiplayer content material to its efficiency enhancements.
New content material
- Now Verified on the Steam Deck (and our native Linux runtime has been set because the default).
- Half-Life: Uplink — the unique standalone Half-Life demo — has been added to the sport, and is accessible by way of the “New Recreation” menu.
- Added 4 all-new Half-Life Deathmatch maps: contamination, pool_party, disposal, and rocket_frenzy
- Added three outdated Half-Life Deathmatch maps previously out there solely on the “Half-Life: Additional Information” CD: doublecross, rust_mill, xen_dm.
- Added Ivan the House Biker, Prototype Barney, Skeleton, and Too A lot Espresso Man as participant fashions to Half-Life Deathmatch.
- Added dozens of latest sprays previously out there solely on the “Half-Life: Additional Information” CD.
- Added assist for Steam Networking, permitting straightforward multiplayer by way of Steam’s Be a part of Recreation and Invite options.
- Added assist for Steam Buddies Wealthy Presence, permitting your mates to comply with your journey by way of Black Mesa.
Nostalgia
- Introduced again the unique Valve Intro video. It may be skipped with the “-novid” launch command.
- Up to date foremost menu to a design impressed by the sport’s authentic 1998 foremost menu.
- Modified the default fashions to the unique (non-HD) fashions.
Gameplay adjustments
- Improved physics for throwing grenades.
- Improved randomness for preliminary spawn factors in multiplayer.
- Improved satchel cost controls: main fireplace now all the time throws a brand new satchel, and secondary fireplace all the time detonates.
UI adjustments
- The primary menu background and buttons have been reskinned, and now scale based mostly on display screen decision with out stretching, supporting background picture layouts as much as 3840×1600.
- In-game HUD now makes use of double or triple-sized sprites when enjoying at increased resolutions.
- UI dialogs and in-game fonts now scale to enhance readability at high-screen resolutions.
- In-Recreation HUD HEV swimsuit show has been shifted to the left of the display screen, and not adjustments place at bigger display screen resolutions.
- Added an “Allow texture filtering” setting.
- Added an “Enable widescreen Area of View” setting to right non-anamorphic FOVs, for widescreen and ultrawide shows.
- Re-organized all of the Settings screens to enhance legibility and assist controller navigation.
- Up to date the Pause menu to concentrate on the present gameplay mode.
- The default server identify and multiplayer participant identify at the moment are based mostly on the participant’s Steam Persona.
- The Steam platform menu has been eliminated, now that every one its options are in Steam itself.
- Eliminated the now very pointless “Low video high quality. Helps with slower video playing cards.” setting.
Enter adjustments
- Added “Decrease Enter Latency” possibility: Synchronizes the CPU and GPU to cut back the time between enter and show output.
These highlights are simply the tip of the replace’s iceberg, with different new balancing adjustments, enhancements for mod makers, and extra. Valve additionally states that it has archived Half-Life’s earlier construct “to a publicly seen Beta department.” The developer does now contemplate the current anniversary version to be the “definitive model” and the one it’ll “proceed to assist going ahead.”
When you end redownloading the retro masterpiece on Steam, have a flick thru our roundup of the opposite finest PC video games you possibly can’t miss out on. Alternatively, try a couple of of our most extremely anticipated upcoming PC video games for one thing new to excite your self with. The way forward for gaming appears to be like simply as brilliant as its previous.
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