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This early version of Half-Life Blue Shift includes a bizarre G-Man moment

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Chaos has always seemed to follow Valve and its Half-Life series, and things were no different with its second expansion to the original game. Half-Life Blue Shift was initially meant to be a lucrative new piece of content for the planned Dreamcast port of the iconic shooter that was canceled at the last moment, and made its way to PC as an additional expansion instead. However, an early version of the Dreamcast build has been unearthed, and the Blue Shift it contains includes some intriguing differences and a bizarre G-Man placeholder. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Half Life suddenly blows up on Steam after launch of brutal new mod New Half-Life Opposing Force fan remake looks just as good as Black Mesa New Half-Life Blue Shift remake is way bigger than the original and playable now

G-Man's voice actor rings in the new year by dropping a cryptic tweet grenade promising 'unexpected surprises' into the starving Half-Life 3 fanbase

by Harvey Randall

There are certain, well, certainties in life. Death and taxes are two of them, while the fact that Half-Life 3 is probably never coming is a fitting third. Despite a bevvy of occult rumours and whisperings, prayers and sacrifices to the periodic table have never borne fruit. Silksong, for all its despair and mania, can't even hold a candle to the long, 21-year old flame that fans of Half-Life 2 have been holding for the sequel that never was... Read more.

Half Life suddenly blows up on Steam after launch of brutal new mod

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Half-Life, Valve's original FPS classic, isn't short on horror. This, after all, is a game where your fellow scientists get by skull-piercing headcrabs, turned into virtual zombies. But the latest iteration of the Brutal Half-Life mod takes things to the extreme, painting Black Mesa's walls red. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Half-Life Opposing Force fan remake looks just as good as Black Mesa New Half-Life Blue Shift remake is way bigger than the original and playable now The Half-Life Blue Shift remake, built using Black Mesa, is finally back

Half Life suddenly blows up on Steam after launch of brutal new mod

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Half-Life, Valve's original FPS classic, isn't short on horror. This, after all, is a game where your fellow scientists get by skull-piercing headcrabs, turned into virtual zombies. But the latest iteration of the Brutal Half-Life mod takes things to the extreme, painting Black Mesa's walls red. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Half-Life Opposing Force fan remake looks just as good as Black Mesa New Half-Life Blue Shift remake is way bigger than the original and playable now The Half-Life Blue Shift remake, built using Black Mesa, is finally back

New Half-Life Opposing Force fan remake looks just as good as Black Mesa

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Opposing Force is quietly one of the best Half-Life games. I like the simplicity of Blue Shift. On the contrary, the overarching plot and the action set pieces of the Half-Life 2 saga still feel fresh 20 years later. Alyx has the tech. The original Half-Life is the original Half-Life. But Adrian Shephard's story is the funniest, the most spectacular, and it has an M249 SAW gun. We haven't seen or heard from the unfortunate HECU corporal since 1999, but now, at last, he's coming back. A complete Half-Life Opposing Force remake has just been revealed, and it looks just as thorough and professional as Crowbar Collective's Black Mesa. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Half-Life Blue Shift remake is way bigger than the original and playable now The Half-Life Blue Shift remake, built using Black Mesa, is finally back 'New' version of Half-Life discovered with cut content and secrets

New Half-Life Blue Shift remake is way bigger than the original and playable now

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Given how much time has passed since Gordon Freeman first rode the automated transit system into our hearts, I think we're all comfortable now with admitting one unassailable truth: every single moment spent in the original version of Xen is a nightmare. Half-Life 2 is 20 years old. Valve has marked the occasion with a revised and tweaked version of the FPS. But historically, it's modders who have fixed the very worst part of the iconic shooter series, first in the superlative Black Mesa, and now in its spiritual successor. An unofficial remake of Half-Life Blue Shift is available to play right now, and it's just gotten a new chapter that makes Barney's excursion into the alien border world actually enjoyable. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The Half-Life Blue Shift remake, built using Black Mesa, is finally back 'New' version of Half-Life discovered with cut content and secrets Here are some of the best Steam games most own but too few have played

The Half-Life Blue Shift remake, built using Black Mesa, is finally back

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Short, grounded, and with regular beer-owing guy Barney as its hero, Blue Shift could be my favorite Half-Life game. Half-Life 1 gets points for originality. Half-Life 2 has excellent set pieces in the form of City 17, the coastal road trip, and Ravenholm. But Blue Shift - like Opposing Force - is so tight and focused, and rounds out the resonance cascade story so well, that I think it takes the metaphorical crowbar. As HL2 gets closer to its 20th anniversary, the idea of a Half-Life 3 feels both closer and further away than ever. Valve might be keeping quiet about the future of its FPS, but modders are hard at work. The unofficial Half-Life Blue Shift remake, built using the fan-made masterpiece Black Mesa, is finally coming back. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: 'New' version of Half-Life discovered with cut content and secrets Here are some of the best Steam games most own but too few have played Half-Life players somehow manage to beat Opposing Force in 17 minutes

October 2, 2024 Update

by benb

Fixed HLTV startup crashes and incompatibility with 25th anniversary maps. Fixed memory leak that caused a crash after repeatedly changing brightness or gamma. Enabled /LARGEADDRESSAWARE to support mods with large memory requirements.. Miscellaneous mod compatibility fixes. Miscellaneous security fixes.

A veteran developer found a beta build of Half-Life in his storage unit and has made it available for anyone to download

by Ted Litchfield

What's the coolest thing you've ever found while cleaning out your garage or a relative's storage unit? For former game developer Chad Jessup, it's probably the beta version of the original Half-Life he uncovered this month, now shared to the Internet Archive by videogame preservation enthusiast Reagan for all to enjoy... Read more.

'New' version of Half-Life discovered with cut content and secrets

by editor@pcgamesn.com

2024 has been a goldmine of Half-Life discoveries. The series has sneakily reappeared in a Counter-Strike 2 update, a mysterious Half-Life 2 patch might hint towards 20th-anniversary celebrations, and Half-Life 3 feels closer than it's ever been. There's never been a better time to dig into Gordan Freeman's silent adventures. Now, if you're as much a fan of beta builds and cut content as I am, I've got a real treat for you. A decades-old disc containing a prerelease Half-Life build has been found, and it's been archived for good measure. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Here are some of the best Steam games most own but too few have played Half-Life players somehow manage to beat Opposing Force in 17 minutes Underrated Half-Life game gets huge new Steam record 23 years later

Here are some of the best Steam games most own but too few have played

by editor@pcgamesn.com

There are some games it feels like literally everyone has played - or at least heard of. Half-Life. Portal. Left 4 Dead. The list goes on, and on, and on. But despite their popularity and status as PC gaming icons, new data from SteamIDFinder shows that the videogames we call classics too often sit collecting dust in our Steam libraries and, quite honestly, I feel slightly called out right now. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Half-Life players somehow manage to beat Opposing Force in 17 minutes Underrated Half-Life game gets huge new Steam record 23 years later Half-Life players are plotting to break a new Steam record

'There's an alternate universe where Half-Life disappeared after release': Valve's first marketing strategist Monica Harrington says she helped navigate its way out of early disaster

by Lincoln Carpenter

Looking back on Valve's record of repeated hits and the fact that most of us are playing our PC games under Steam's monolithic shadow, it's tempting to think that this was the only way history could've gone. But according to Monica Harrington, Valve's chief marketing strategist in its early years and then wife of studio co-founder Mike Harrington, we only barely avoided a world where Half-Life left Valve in ruins, and we've got her work to thank for it... Read more.

Half-Life players somehow manage to beat Opposing Force in 17 minutes

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Naturally you have to admire the work of game developers, particularly those with a talent like Valve. Between the original Half-Life, new hero shooter Deadlock, and maybe, just maybe, Half-Life 3, the Gabe Enclave has successfully produced some of the most defining PC games of the last two decades. But perhaps even more awe-inspiring is the work of speedrunners, and the ingenious ways they manage to reverse engineer and break Valve's games. 25 years since it was released, Half-Life Opposing Force, the Adrian Shephard-led expansion focusing on the HECU, has just been dismantled and rebuilt into a staggering speedrun record that almost defies belief. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Underrated Half-Life game gets huge new Steam record 23 years later Half-Life players are plotting to break a new Steam record If Deadlock is real, the visionary Valve we once knew is gone for good

Underrated Half-Life game gets huge new Steam record 23 years later

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Valve has been in the news a lot lately. The digital storefront owner and (too occasional) game maker has just shared details on its latest project, an Overwatch style multiplayer hero shooter called Deadlock that looks to be coming out soon after running invite only tests. Less officially, we've also heard fresh rumblings about the eternally anticipated Half-Life 3, with speculation on a current iteration of the game picking up thanks to a voice actor's CV. But, amidst all of this, a group of fans has looked back further into Valve's history to make another kind of news, gathering together to give the first Half-Life's Blue Shift add on a new concurrent player record on Steam. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Half-Life players are plotting to break a new Steam record If Deadlock is real, the visionary Valve we once knew is gone for good One of the best Half-Life mods ever made is finally back from the dead

Half-Life players are plotting to break a new Steam record

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Half-Life Blue Shift is not to be underestimated. Alongside the other expansion, Opposing Force, and of course the tentpole Gordon Freeman adventure proper, the story of Barney's worst ever day at Black Mesa might seem comparatively minor. But it's a fantastic FPS, lighter, swifter, and often funnier than its siblings, and offering a totally different perspective on the disastrous resonance cascade. Built by Gearbox, alongside all the others, Blue Shift feels like the most forgotten Half-Life game. But now, as some small rumors about Half-Life 3 start to appear, HL fans are determined to prove that Blue Shift still deserves attention. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: If Deadlock is real, the visionary Valve we once knew is gone for good One of the best Half-Life mods ever made is finally back from the dead Half-Life remake dev finally has a new game, with a beta on the way