Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2. For more information about the 
Original Xbox version, see Half-Life 2 (Xbox).
Xbox 360 & 
PlayStation 3 version of Half-Life 2, included on 
The Orange Box, see The Orange Box (Console). Half-Life 2 defines a new benchmark in gaming with startling realism and responsiveness. Powered by then-new 
Source technology, Half-Life 2 features the most sophisticated in-game characters ever witnessed, advanced AI, stunning graphics and physical gameplay. This was the first game requiring installation of Steam when it came out back in 2004.
Half-Life 2 is the sequel to the 1998 
Half-Life. A sequel to Half-Life 2 was released in 2006, titled 
Half-Life 2: Episode One. A virtual reality prequel was released in 2020, titled 
Half-Life: Alyx.
It is also available for the Original Xbox console, as well Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 as part of the console version of The Orange Box.
The game has considerable number of physics puzzles which aren't that common in games like 
Quake (series), Unreal (video game series), Doom (franchise), Call of Duty, Tom Clancy's and Halo (franchise). Even Half-Life has less puzzles.
Limitations/Bugs
Important:The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.
Warning:As of May 26 2010, the branch of Source under which Half-Life 2 originally ran (
/
) no longer exists on Steam. Very, very old mods which base themselves directly on the game (as opposed to Source SDK Base) are unlikely to work any more!.This also meant that support for running Half-Life 2 on Windows 9x/ME/2000 have been also dropped.
Warning:When Valve ported Half-Life 2 to 
Source 2013 during transition to SteamPipe, Valve forgot to compile some of the maps with LDR lighting added. This means that if HDR is disabled (by selecting None or Bloom only in HDR settings), mat_fullbright will be set to 1, disabling lighting and making everything bright and flat (relevant GitHub issue).This issue is not affected in previous version of the game (which uses older engines).
Content
- Half-Life 2 maps (
hl2) - Source shared (
hl2) 
Source 2013 Singleplayer engine branch
Chapters
- Point Insertion
- "A Red Letter Day"
- Route Kanal
- Water Hazard
- Black Mesa East
- "We don't go to Ravenholm..."
- Highway 17
- Sandtraps
- Nova Prospekt
- Entanglement
- Anticitizen One
- "Follow Freeman!"
- Our Benefactors
- Dark Energy
Credits
These are the official credits for "Half-Life 2" as released in October 2004:
Voices:
Voice Casting:
Voice Recording:
Voice recording scheduling and logistics:
Translations:
Crack Legal Team:
Thanks to the following for the use of their faces:
Special thanks to everyone at:
|
Notes
Dr. Gordon Freeman can collect wooden planks after destroying wooden boxes. This is unlike 
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
Combine soldiers don't have Ragdoll physics at d1_trainstation_04.
Dr. Gordon Freeman can't drag ragdolled Combine soldiers. Can't use.
d1_trainstation_04 may miss the lambda logo at
setpos 636.031250 -6385.287598 604.031250;setang 5.455154 61.770767 0.000000
...
Technical notes
- Being underwater at d1_canals_01 can stress some PCs...
- Although Source mods are often described as being "for Half-Life 2", they actually use Source SDK Base. SDK Base is available to anyone who owns any Valve Source game and provides all of Half-Life 2's content (except maps and vcd scenes) on a static branch of the engine.
- The Half-Life 2 Collectors Edition, which ships with Source 2004 version of the game, does not require Steam to run or update (similar to latest version), which meant that it will run on older systems with Windows 2000 and earlier.
- The 64-bit Windows version of Half-Life 2, which existed around 2005-2006, is no longer available.
