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Imagine GTA with AI-generated characters "just going along with whatever insane thing you say," muses Valve writer, absent-mindedly spotlighting what terrifies me about genAI

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Like many people at companies preoccupied with discovering the next "goose that lays the golden egg", Half-Life 2 and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw has been "poking around" with generative AI. He and a small team at Valve have been testing out different applications, in what Wolpaw assures us isn't a "concerted" effort at implementing the soul-regurgitating, workforce-abrading gadgetry in any particular new game. Wolpaw's current feeling is that generative AI isn't very good at anything "creative", like cracking jokes. But he does think Large Language Models could make for entertaining NPC voice reactions in games such as Grand Theft Auto and, indeed, Wolpaw's own Left 4 Dead, because AI is marvellous at being a fawning little gopher. It is fantastic at "going along with whatever insane thing you say and kind of adjusting to the flow of that". Read more

C'mon, Remedy, you can't use the words 'Rise and Shine' in your TGA trailer—don't you know you're hurting all those hopeful fans in r/Halflife?

by Christopher Livingston

Hope springs eternal, and there's no better evidence of that than the members of subreddit r/Halflife, who have been waiting all year for the announcement of Half-Life 3, or Half-Life X, or whatever the next Half-Life game will be called... Read more.

A former Valve dev revealed how, while a VR version of Half-Life 2 was being made, a single metro cop's toe created a 'time-travelling' bug that softlocked all versions of the game

by Justin Wagner

One of the coolest things about Half-Life 2 is its physics engine, but as anyone who has played a physics-based game will know, even the best-in-class tech is prone to quirks here and there. Valve's legendary narrative shooter was no exception, as former Valve developer Tom Forsyth shared in a thread on Mastodon... Read more.

Half-Life fans are in a frenzy over the prospect of a Half-Life 3 announcement that there's (almost) no good reason to believe is happening

by Tyler Wilde

Half-Life 3 fever has once again broken out across social media, and the Half-Life subreddit is full of both earnestly hopeful and sarcastically dismissive posts about the supposedly imminent announcement of a sequel to Valve's landmark 2004 shooter—probably the most speculated-about game ever not to exist... Read more.

OK, for real though, what's the chance of a Half-Life 3 announcement happening soon? Here's what we know

by Tyler Wilde

fter two decades of Half-Life 3 rumors, each new burst of hope looks a lot like Charlie Brown once again getting set to kick a football. None of the suspicious lines of CS:GO code or yarn-webbed conspiracy board YouTube videos have actually preceded an announcement of the fabled Half-Life 2 sequel. And yet, here we all are again, charging down the field with renewed gusto following Valve's big hardware announcements... Read more.

Half-Life 2 just got a patch that fixes a progress-blocking teleporter bug and makes a train easier to race

by Jody Macgregor

Last year, Valve brought the original development team back together for a 20th anniversary Half-Life 2 update. It integrated the post-launch episodes, added a new developer commentary track, brought in Steam Workshop support, and added a heap of map and gameplay updates. All of which was great—except for one progress-blocking bug it introduced to the Entanglement level... Read more.

July 23, 2025 Update

by benb

Restored speed of the train near the end of Highway 17 to better match the original shipped difficulty. Fixed missing collision that was allowing NPCs to shoot through some walls in Entanglement. Fixed issue where Alyx could obstruct the player's path when boarding the teleporter near the end of Entanglement. NOTE: these map updates will not break existing saves but players may need to restart their current chapter if they saved after a progress blocking bug on a previous game version.

Forgotten Half-Life 2 zombie mod from 2007 suddenly explodes on Steam

by editor@pcgamesn.com

If Half-Life is one of the most influential videogame series in history, it's not only because of Valve, Gordon Freeman, and the actual FPS games themselves. Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are nexus points for a whole generation of PC classics. Counter-Strike began as a Half-Life mod, as did Day of Defeat, and The Hidden. The first Team Fortress was bundled as a Half-Life spinoff. The same Source engine that brings to life City 17 and Ravenholm is also the backbone of Team Fortress 2 and Portal. Originally released in 2007, Zombie Panic Source is another of Half-Life's informal descendants. A spiritual precursor to today's asymmetrical, multiplayer horror games and a staple of mid to late '00s modding, alongside CSGO and Left 4 Dead, Zombie Panic Source is now somehow having a resurgence on Steam. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Half-Life 2 will never be the same as legendary mod officially comes to Steam Half-Life 2 RTX ruined Ravenholm, but those big lighting problems just go...

Half-Life 2 becomes a loot-hoarding roguelike dungeon crawl in this Next Fest mod demo

by Dominic Tarason

It is the year 2025 and everything is a roguelite now. Even the games of yesteryear are getting randomizers and procedural generation shoehorned in, and Half-Life 2 isn't escaping either. Good thing that SourceWorld is pretty dang fun, if its newly released Next Fest demo is any indication... Read more.

Half-Life 2 will never be the same as legendary mod officially comes to Steam

by editor@pcgamesn.com

How many times have you completed Half-Life 2? In the 21 years (yeesh) since Valve's genre-changing FPS game was first released, I'd speculate that I've destroyed the Citadel, escaped City 17, and launched the rocket from White Forest on no fewer than 30 occasions. Maybe that says something about me; maybe we really, really need Half-Life 3. Nevertheless, after more than two decades, there's an alternative way to experience Gordon Freeman's post-apocalyptic odyssey - except it doesn't involve Gordon Freeman at all. If you haven't heard of Lambda Fortress before, the iconic mod is finally coming to Steam, and lets you play Half-Life 2 like you never have before. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Half-Life 2 RTX ruined Ravenholm, but those big lighting problems just got fixed Check out this incredible Half-Life 2 gaming PC build with an Nvidia RTX 5090 Half-Life 2 RTX is struggling on Steam, as players face performance woes

Former Valve writer Marc Laidlaw says he 'retired too hard', but there's no way he's coming back for Half-Life 3: 'We need new stuff, [not] me going 'Well the G-Man wouldn't do that in my day''

by Rich Stanton

new episode of Netflix's Love, Death and Robots is based on a short story written back in the 80s by former Valve writer and now professional retiree Marc Laidlaw. Laidlaw left Valve in 2016 but, in a new interview with IGN, wonders whether "I retired too hard.".. Read more.

Half-Life 2 RTX ruined Ravenholm, but those big lighting problems just got fixed

by editor@pcgamesn.com

It seems like rumors pointing to Half-Life 3's existence are reaching a new fever pitch lately, but, as has been the case for more than a decade now, it's probably better to focus your attention on games in the series that actually exist until an actual launch date is announced. For anyone looking for newer versions of those games, there have been projects like the series' VR iteration, Half-Life: Alyx, the first game's remaster as Black Mesa, and, most recently, a demo section of Half-Life 2 remastered under the title of Half-Life 2 RTX. The latter of these options, HL2 RTX, was fairly underwhelming when it came out in March, but now, as the result of a new update, one of its biggest problems has just been fixed. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Check out this incredible Half-Life 2 gaming PC build with an Nvidia RTX 5090 Half-Life 2 RTX is struggling on Steam, as players face performance woes The Half-Life 2 RTX demo takes five times more HDD space than Half-Life 2 itself...

Valve only wants to make new Half-Life games if they push the medium forward, but what could it push forward next?

by Justin Wagner

When asked to explain why Valve never made Half-Life 2: Episode 3 for the recent 20th anniversary documentary, Gabe Newell said that he "couldn't figure out why doing Episode 3 was pushing anything forward.".. Read more.

Half-Life 2's 2003 beta reveals the mystery behind a City 17 river that once led players to the foot of the Citadel

by Rich Stanton

There are various unfinished versions of Half-Life 2 that have come to light over the years, all of which reveal interesting things about how Valve's plans changed over time as it painstakingly refined and pruned one of the PC gaming greats... Read more.

Arkane was 'devastated' by its cancelled Half-Life 2 Ravenholm game, but the masterclass it got from late visionary artist Viktor Antonov 'was pivotal to what would become Arkane later'

by Harvey Randall

One of the most unfortunate missed shots in gaming is that of Arkane's cancelled Ravenholm game—in case you're unfamiliar, circa 2007-2008, Arkane was working on a standalone spin-off that would see players returning to Half-Life 2's zombie-infested Ravenholm... Read more.