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Here's that noir thriller built in the original Half-Life engine you asked for

by Rick Lane

There's been a surprisingly strong run of Half-Life total conversions of late, by which I mean there have been two of them. November brought us Diffusion, a massively ambitious sci-fi adventure with some truly eye-popping environment design, especially considering the age of its tech. Yes, it featured some terrible AI generated text-to-speech. But its creator is working on fixing that and recently revealed some of the human cast for its English dub... Read more.

From new Command and Conquer and Half-Life campaigns to a full expansion for an RPG classic, these are the top ten mods of the year

by editor@pcgamesn.com

It's not often I get to write about Half-Life these days, even if fans are absolutely certain that the threequel is on the way. I still don't think Gabe Newell can count that high, but at least we've got an army of loyal modders to create new experiences for Gordon Freeman to explore. The majority of my gaming time this year has been spent on modded playthroughs, so I anticipated ModDB's annual roundup of the best mods of 2025 with bated breath. We, the players, voted for the top mods of the year, and the results are finally in. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New FPS Half-Life Element 64 has just launched a demo on Steam, but Valve's not involved A new, Valve-less Half-Life campaign is out now and puts a completely fresh perspective on the original FPS Ambitious, unofficial Half-Life expansion wraps up a 24-year-old cliffhanger

10 years in the making, this total conversion based on Half-Life is every bit as ambitious as Black Mesa

by Rick Lane

There was a specific moment while playing Diffusion where it shifted from being merely a highly capable Half-Life mod to one of the most remarkable conversions of Valve's classic FPS I've ever played. It's a moment reminiscent of Xen's reveal in Crowbar Collective's remake of Black Mesa, a sense of wonder imbued in equal parts by the sci-fi vista placed before you and the fact you know that it's running on the technical equivalent of a restored 1930s sedan... Read more.

This Half-Life mod reimagines the game as a boomer shooter—yes, even boomier than the original

by Justin Wagner

Half-Life revolutionized the first-person shooter when it released in 1998, what with its top shelf storytelling and novel puzzles. But who needs any of that crap? What if there was a game that turned the clock back just like, a year or two—same alien menace, some of the same innovations, but it plays a hell of a lot more like Quake. No, I'm not talking about Unreal, I'm talking about Half-Life: Element 64, a fresh mod that released a demo today on Steam... Read more.

New FPS Half-Life Element 64 has just launched a demo on Steam, but Valve's not involved

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Half-Life 3 fever might be hotter right now than it has been in years. With the announcement of the new Valve Steam Machine and Steam Frame VR headset, desperate fans have convinced themselves that this is finally the time where the tale of Gordon Freeman and company makes its long-awaited comeback. There's even a small part of me that believes them. But what I do know is that there's a new Half-Life game that's just launched a demo on Steam, albeit one without Valve's direct involvement. This is Half-Life: Element 64, and you can try it today. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: A new, Valve-less Half-Life campaign is out now and puts a completely fresh perspective on the original FPS Ambitious, unofficial Half-Life expansion wraps up a 24-year-old cliffhanger New Half-Life mod rebuilds Halo multiplayer inside Valve's original engine

Geoff Keighley denies he's hiding Half-Life 3 in his Steam wishlist, posts a screenshot to prove it, nobody believes him, and I'm starting to wonder if he's just messing with us

by Andy Chalk

Half-Life 3 fever has been running hot this week, for reasons—and I use that term loosely—we laid out here, which can very generally be described as "it's November and we're all a little bored and restless." One small bit of pseudo-evidence did catch my eye, though: As PC Gamer's freest man Tyler Wilde noted, "Geoff Keighley posted a 👀 emoji." What?.. Read more.

A new, Valve-less Half-Life campaign is out now and puts a completely fresh perspective on the original FPS

by editor@pcgamesn.com

Rumors of Half-Life 3 swirl once more. Could this finally be the time when Valve unleashes a new chapter in its iconic series, hailed among the best FPS games ever to this day? The good news is that there is a new Half-Life story that you can play right now, although this one doesn't come from the Steam developer. Instead, the Half-Life: Insecure campaign is a fan-made project that puts a unique perspective on Gordon Freeman's original outing, and it's finally finished and available to download right now. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Ambitious, unofficial Half-Life expansion wraps up a 24-year-old cliffhanger New Half-Life mod rebuilds Halo multiplayer inside Valve's original engine Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and even Day of Defeat have been updated by Valve

Renegade graphics warlock makes Half-Life look like Half-Life 2, then runs it on an ancient laptop, raising a middle finger to poorly optimised PC games

by Rick Lane

We're in another grim period for poorly optimised PC games, with the last couple of years bringing us a string of power-hungry virtual slideshows such as 2023's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and, more recently, Borderlands 4. Corpos like Randy Pitchford think we should stop moaning and fork out for a better PC, as playing the best-looking games simply demands a rig capable of lighting a small town... Read more.

Whatever happened to They Hunger: Lost Souls, the sequel to one of Half-Life's best mods?

by Rick Lane

If you followed the Half-Life modding scene at the turn of the Millennium, you undoubtedly encountered They Hunger. Developed by Black Widow Games and released as a PC Gamer exclusive on demo discs in 2000, They Hunger took the tech and design tenets of Half-Life and transposed them to an all-new zombie horror adventure. Delivering a near-professional grade experience, it's one of the best singleplayer Half-Life mods ever made, a thrilling and often deeply weird survival horror game created at a time when zombies were still relatively novel... Read more.

Ambitious, unofficial Half-Life expansion wraps up a 24-year-old cliffhanger

by editor@pcgamesn.com

You think of Half-Life, and you immediately think Valve. It's a series synonymous with Steam and PC gaming as a whole, but it has ventured onto other platforms, too. No, I'm not talking about Alyx (which is still a Steam-only game, despite the fact that you can play it on non-Valve headsets), this is Half-Life: Decay. This DLC for the original game was designed by Randy Pitchford and developed by Gearbox Software for the PlayStation 2 back in 2001. If you ever wanted to learn the fate of Drs. Colette Green and Gina Cross, you'll finally be able to, thanks to a new set of mods. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: New Half-Life mod rebuilds Halo multiplayer inside Valve's original engine Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and even Day of Defeat have been updated by Valve This early version of Half-Life Blue Shift includes a bizarre G-Man moment

Here's a mod that puts Halo's multiplayer into Half-Life, which to me feels like putting tea in your coffee

by Rick Lane

"What if we recreated this game in that engine?" is a classic modding conceit, up there with "What if Stalker was even more miserable?" and "What if this character had no clothes on?". In fact, I'm surprised it's taken 25 years for someone to stick Halo's multiplayer into Half-Life. It's the sort of harebrained scheme I would have eagerly read about on Planet Half-Life back in 2006... Read more.

New Half-Life mod rebuilds Halo multiplayer inside Valve's original engine

by editor@pcgamesn.com

The first Half-Life was a nexus point for what we consider the modern FPS. Valve's shooter presented a fully realized world, and a compelling narrative to go with it. Gordon Freeman's tram ride to Black Mesa sets the tone, while the walls of the secretive research facility tell their own stories. Then Halo comes along, which ups the ante with gigantic sandbox levels and an entire universe to decipher. We wouldn't have the shooters we do today without Half-Life and Halo. But what would happen if we smashed both games together? Now you can find out. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and even Day of Defeat have been updated by Valve This early version of Half-Life Blue Shift includes a bizarre G-Man moment Half Life suddenly blows up on Steam after launch of brutal new mod

This Half-Life mod remakes Valve's classic shooter to be both longer and wider, and it has radically altered my perception of the original

by Rick Lane

I've always said that my favourite chapter in Half-Life is Office Complex. In a game all about recontextualising the FPS from abstract mazes into a realistic, coherent setting, to me Office Complex felt like the ultimate expression of that. It's the most mundane part of Black Mesa's clandestine research facility, swapping the hellscapes of Doom and the fantasy realms of Heretic for a cold and clinical administration centre... Read more.

Valve considered making a 'B title' before Half-Life, until an exec told Gabe Newell 'that's just not gonna work… the company will fail'

by Rich Stanton

Last year saw the 25th anniversary of Half-Life, one of the most important games in PC history and a spectacular debut for Valve. But in another timeline, it could've been the studio's second game... Read more.

Former Valve exec says the company struggled to sell Half-Life until coming up with the ultimate 'one simple trick' of marketing manoeuvres: slapping a 'Game of the Year' sticker on the box

by Rich Stanton

One of this year's GDC highlights was a talk by Monica Harrington, a founding member of Valve and the company's first chief marketing officer, who went over her history with the company that brought us Half-Life and Steam... Read more.