To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2, Valve is giving away for free the main game, alongside Episode One and Episode Two. Until November 18th, PC gamers can acquire a free copy of this classic FPS. So, if for whatever reason you don’t own it, you should seize the opportunity and get it.
Valve has also shared a two-hour documentary about HL2. Moreover, you can find below a video showcasing its E3 2003 Demo. That demo impressed everyone when Valve presented it back in 2003. And now, you can watch it in full HD.
Not only that but Valve has released a new update for HL2. The 20th Anniversary Update brings some QoL improvements, as well as visual enhancements. For instance, every map in Half-Life 2 has been looked over by Valve level designers to fix longstanding bugs and restore content. It also packs some gameplay tweaks.
This new patch improves the game in several ways. For example, we now have a new radial fog. The patch also adds higher-resolution lightmaps. Plus, it fixes visual issues like objects popping in and out, holes in the world, disappearing objects, missing grass, and blacked-out models.
Players can now choose between the original blood and fire effects from launch day or the effects made for the episodes. The devs also added a new High Quality mode. This mode has the highest and most detailed 3D models. Plus, the game now has smoother shadows on Very High shader detail, thanks to new bicubic lightmap filtering.
Now I wouldn’t really describe the 20th Anniversary Update as a “Remaster”. It’s not. Still, it does bring a few graphical enhancements, which are definitely welcome.
Anyway, you can acquire your free copy from this link. As said, the game will be free until November 18th. Once you acquire your free copy, you can keep it yours forever.
Here are also some cool mods for Half-Life 2. In theory, these mods should work with this latest version. So, you can download an amazing VR Mod. Another mod is Entropy: Zero 2. This mod adds a brand-new campaign that has seven chapters of content. You can also try a demo for a fan-made sequel to Opposing Force called Half-Life: Through The City. There is also an HD Texture Pack you can download. Finally, we have Half-Life 2 RTX which is still in development.
Enjoy!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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No thank you, I'll rather wait for HL2 RTX
I hope you're being sarcastic. You need the base HL2 game to play HL2 RTX. And even if it didn't, the base games still hold up pretty well, and they're free.
"I hope you're being sarcastic"
Literally this lmao. And knowing that the HL2 RTX remaster is made by Ngreedia, it will be an unoptimized mess on purpose, release a few patches then abandon it so that you are forced to buy the over $2000 RTX 5090 GPU for it to be remotely half playable at just 60 FPS just like that Portal 2 RTX remaster.
I hit easily 140fps in 1440p in portal 2 rtx with a simple 4070ti.
What about 4K? How many FPS do you get? And the "140fps in 1440p in portal 2 rtx with a simple 4070ti" point that you said, is that with DLSS or without DLSS?
50-60fps sometime 70fps. It's a way more demanding in 4k. Full dlss ray reconstruction/ray tracing. 120-140fps in 2k full ray tracing/dlss FG
50-60fps sometime 70fps. It's a way more demanding in 4k. Full dlss ray reconstruction/ray tracing. 120-140fps in 2k full ray tracing/dlss FG
So you didn't actually get 140 FPS at 1440p. You got 140 FPS at 720p or lower, and it was temporally upscaled to 1440p.
I tried to play that dumpster fire on my RTX 3070 Ti at 1440p (native resolution) and it was barely playable (I think 30 FPS to 40 FPS). RTX is such a joke…
30xx series don't support frame generation(except fsr3) and dlss3. A 4070ti is much more powerful than a 3070ti.
If I wanted fake frames, I'd use Lossless Scaling. I don't need NVIDIA's temporal BS and overhyped machine learning to do it.
Go for it
Go for it
I've already tried it. It's surprisingly good considering it doesn't have a multi trillion dollar company behind its development, however I'd rather just have real rendered frames over fake frames. Less artifacting, less latency issues, and it delivers the best user experience.
👍🏻
loll, you still need HL2, and HL2 RTX doesn't cover the episodes, Lost Coast and Deathmatch as far as i know
Regarding Steam.
The Stalker 2 system requirements are apparently with DLSS, which the developers didn't mention.
When people on the Steam forums pointed this out, moderators started removing those posts, and eventually banning users.
Wait, you mean that img saying that with a 3070ti you could expect 1440p high at 60fps ? That's with DLSS ? Bruh, what a curse DLSS has been on the industry.
Waaaaah! waaaah! Cursed! Waaaah!
Are you okay there buddy ? Did you forget to take your meds ?
Do you have meds to make me fertile?
I told you so in our article about the PC specs 😛
yes and apologized about the newbie mod and unbanned that person.
That E3 2003 demo is still impressive to this day, and especially so when considering that the absolute majority of contemporary AAA games offer nowhere near the same level of physics-driven world reaction & interactivity.
games these days don't even render a mirror! that's how lazy devs have become!
the fact we went from deus ex to call of duty for 2 decades is disturbing to me.
Oh my God, I can't believe it; they FINALLY fixed the godawful UI scaling at 4K and higher resolutions.
I just hope all the other Source Engine games that are still being updated to this day adapts this UI, especially ones that are pure nightmares to play at 4K because of the small UI like Garry's Mod.
The small UI is the very reason why most Garry's Mod videos are still in 1080p even in 2024, because no one wants to suffer through that eye bleedingly small UI at 4K.
they did? wow! finally! the only workaround was to edit the font size in SourceScheme file from resource folder.
Yep, it's even mentioned in the patch notes. I have also tested it myself, launched the game at 4K, temporarily switched to other resolutions and most of them had almost just the exact same sizes.
Here, I just took a couple of screenshots, it scales very well and all the resolutions have almost the exact same size (I'll post dynamic 8K in a separate comment):
720p: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a7ddd08f19c060b6dd978790256d067179330074f911a09bf18a1393d1e84ca5.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2900b2fd0e63f8639abb06b9068cccc0fdaab87204b1d1a0310f49110497867c.jpg
1080p: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d2b4e75dfed5b02c96c2fa54fcad9f543a74ed3f17e78328a60778a7c41e6674.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/87920f76d1a8134bf1005e72941b564f6b898bf9d34bd884f621550e0067764e.jpg
4K: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff75f1a254122b56b2b4c5cc7923f37b6ce7cdce4e12e405e99eff9242487fa4.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e0fe94c6e8a819683c515e900d233de3d96175286fc800befc6f07936c29c10b.jpg
Here it is also at 8K, I just separated the comment because Disqus can't upload files higher than 5MB and it is uploaded on an outgoing link (Imgur):
https://imgur.com/a/ZyKzQmj
Glad to see this finally added. It's still a major problem in older games, F.E.A.R. comes to mind immediately.
Yeah, finally.
Unfortunately for F.E.A.R. (as well as many other older games with scaling issues like MOHAA, Codemasters' Operation Flashpoint, etc), I don't see it receiving an official update that adds support for 4K and higher resolutions, since HL2 is a game that has been receiving official updates from Valve from time to time, while the updates for F.E.A.R. were long over other than the fact that Monolith has been long done with the series.
It's too bad because F.E.A.R. runs great on modern PCs other than the UI scaling, and the visuals hold up amazingly well almost 20 years later considering the "realistic" graphics and art style. It really just needs a minor update for the UI, which will probably never happen sadly.
True. F.E.A.R. just had mind-blowingly good graphics for its time that still look even good to this very day.
There is a mod available for a long time for F.E.A.R. that fixes UI scaling
Yeah, so did HL2 pre-20th Anniversary Update through DgVoodoo2, and I’ve tried that one myself and worked. I was just referring to an official update without the need to resort to third-party mods.
Mike Tyson is a pathetic sellout.
Let me guess. You bet on a match between a broken golem that smokes weed all day, who only looked like he worked out due to being injected with tons of stem cells (admitted it) and a reality tv star pumped full of the latest gear. Tyson almost tripped walking out to the ring his legs are so gone.
You probably bought the media and Vegas telling you Paul was the betting favorite huh? What happens when the same people who founded Vegas own the media and no it wasn't Italians…
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e51bbdc5f02ac04da70ad7c277f722e9330ef72314322efe16e50220df98a27.jpg
Your guess is garbage and so was your rant.
Amazing to look back and realize that the quality in the final build was even better! game felt so good and still does! The physics were mindblowing for those days. And the destruction. Far Cry was tops before HL2 too, but not on this level. Ultimately Crysis still holds the crown when it comes to physics.
Yeah, the physics, destruction and ragdolls were mind blowing and ridiculously satisfying to toy with…
half life 2 beta was better.
Even if it was downgraded from the beta, HL2 physics still puts most modern games to shame.
So many HL2 news, HL3 release confirmed.
😂😂
Time for some dates, times, square roots and astrology to uncover the release date!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN5KIUNfYGA
Er dont Valve mean – "The digital licence" is free to keep on Steam" – we dont actually 'get to keep' anything…..
– https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/steams-new-disclaimer-reminds-everyone-that-you-dont-actually-own-your-games-gog-moves-in-for-the-killshot-its-offline-installers-cannot-be-taken-away-from-you/
I have the original/physical orange box, so already own the game outright, but I digress. What would have been noteworthy, is if the HL franchise had appeared on GoG then it would be free to own, and cost valve nothing.
And while I appreciate a bunch of bugs have been fixed, I would have prefered seeing ep3 being released along side said update.
And from my perspective its hollow gesture, if you factor in the above and the fact as HL2, Ep1/2 are basically worth peanutes (£1.67 at time of writing this) at this point.
Am downvoting as a result of the false "free to own" b$ publicitiy statement/stunt.
I always try this but I'm not sure how to get my xbone controller to work, it's crazy that even w this 20th version it doesn't work out of the box in game, works for some menus. I did read pcgw post on console commands so may try that next session. And yeah I use controller on my laptop, kb hardAF to replace on any laptop.