These are the lasting things that Half-Life 2 gave us, besides headcrabs and crowbars

It is Half-Life 2 week at Ars Technica! This Saturday, November 16, is the twentieth anniversary of the discharge of Half-Life 2—a recreation of historic significance for the inventive medium and know-how of pc video games. Every day up by way of the sixteenth, we’ll be operating a brand new article trying again on the recreation and its affect.

“Effectively, I simply hate the concept that our video games would possibly waste individuals’s time. Why spend 4 years of your life constructing one thing that is not modern and is principally pointless?”

Valve software program founder Gabe Newell is quoted by Geoff Keighley—sure, the Sport Awards man, again then a GameSpot author—as saying this in June 1999, six months after the unique Half-Life launched. Newell gave his crew no actual price range or deadline, solely the project to “comply with up the perfect PC recreation of all time” and redefine the style.

When Half-Life 2 arrived in November 2004, the Collector’s Version contained about 2.6GB of recordsdata. The sport, nevertheless, contained so many issues that would appear model new in gaming, or simply courageous, that it’s laborious to even record them.

Besides I’m going to strive that proper right here. Some might be laborious to pin definitively in time to Half-Life 2 (HL2). However like many nice video games, HL2 refined current concepts, borrowed others, and had a number of of its personal to indicate off.

Observe that some aspects of the game itself, its standing as Steam’s big push title, and what it’s prefer to play it in the present day, are coated by different writers throughout Ars’ multi-day celebration of the sport’s twentieth anniversary. That features the Gravity Gun.

What number of movie and gaming careers have been launched by individuals studying methods to make the Scout do one thing goofy?

Credit score:
Valve

The Supply Engine

It’s laborious to think about one other recreation developer constructing an engine with such a forward-thinking mission as Supply. Quite than simply construct the factor that runs their subsequent recreation, Valve crafted Supply to be modular, such that its core could possibly be frequently improved (and shipped out over Steam), and newer applied sciences could possibly be optionally ported into video games each new and previous, whereas not breaking any older titles working completely effective.

Supply began improvement through the late levels of the unique Half-Life, however its affect goes far past the sequence. Staff Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: World Offensive, Portal 1/2, and Left 4 Useless, from Valve alone, take up a number of slots on lists of the all-time finest video games. The Stanley Parable, Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines, and a whole lot of other games used Supply, too. Numerous future recreation builders, degree designers, and mod makers minimize their tooth on the very open and freely out there Supply code instruments.