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It's Half-Life 2's 20th anniversary, and Valve just released a major update, stating, "We're using this milestone as an opportunity to celebrate the community of players who have been enjoying it since November 16, 2004," in its announcement. The game is free for PC gamers to claim and keep forever, through November 18.
The original development team returned to record 3.5 hours of new commentary for the base game, bringing the main campaign in line with the episodes, which have featured developer insights since their original release.
The anniversary celebration extends beyond the game itself with a new documentary by Secret Tape. The film explores Half-Life 2's troubled development, from its source code leak to publisher disputes, and Valve has announced plans to release an expanded version of the development book Raising the Bar in 2025.
The update integrates Episode One and Episode Two directly into the main game, letting players access all content from a single menu. While the episodes will remain accessible through Steam's Tools menu, their separate store listings will be removed.
Valve has added a new UI for current displays, improved lighting across all maps, and enhanced water effects. The update has also fixed long-standing issues with specular reflectivity, ultrawide weapon models, and broken NPC behavior.
Players can now browse and install community content through integrated Steam Workshop support, and Valve will preserve the original version of the game under a different branch for mod compatibility.
