Valve recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2 which saw the company release a two hours long documentary. The celebration has also set off a chain of events including more players returning to have a taste of the iconic game.
On Sunday, November 17, 2024, Half-Life 2 saw its concurrent player numbers swell to 64,085, according to SteamDB, which is around four times its previous peak concurrent players. The new number was probably boosted by the 100% discount slammed on the game by Valve as well as the new features and content added to the game.
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This is not the first time that Half-Life has received a boost. In 2021, there was a limited-time community event that led to the rise of Half-Life 2’s player count to around 16,000. The 20th-anniversary celebration also saw Valve add a sizeable developer commentary track to the game, equaling around three and a half hours.
“Not only was the game made free-to-own, but Valve linked both episodes of Half-Life 2, introduced the ‘Lost Coast’ demo into the launcher, and brought the Steam Workshop up to spec to support the game’s modding scene,” observed Grant Taylor-Hill of Insider-Gaming.
The high point of the Half-Life 2 documentary
In the documentary to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2, Valve brought back members of the development team to talk about the game’s development. Some of the issues discussed in the documentary include how the company almost ran out of money, what they felt when they were hacked, and The Episodes.
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During the documentary, the team showed off an almost 20-minute early footage from Half-Life 2’s development. The game got a demo in 2000, nearly two years after the launch of the first game and it was still far off from the finished product.
The third episode of Half-Life was announced but never saw the light of day. In the new documentary produced by Secret Tape, some of the developers who worked on the game hinted at the reason why it was never released.
“I think we were six months in on it when we moved to Left 4 Dead,” said David Speyre, an engineer on Half-Life 2. “We put down episode 3 to go help Left 4 Dead.”
“By the time we considered going back to Episode 3, the argument was made that ‘well we missed it’. We could have definitely gone back and spent two years to make episode 3.”
Half-Life 2 which is free to own for a limited period now includes the base game along with complete Episode One and Episode Two expansions. Players will automatically advance to the next expansion after completing each one.
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