Half-Life 2
Valve Corporation
November 16, 2004
Xbox:
November 15, 2005
Xbox 360:
October 10, 2007
PlayStation 3:
December 11, 2007
macOS:
May 26, 2010
Linux:
May 9, 2013
Android
May 12, 2014
custom
folder and sourcemods
)Half-Life 2 (abbreviated as HL2) 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.
Half-Life 2 was later ported for the Xbox console in 2005, as well as for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2007, bundled under The Orange Box.
The game has considerable number of physics puzzles which aren't that common in games like Doom, Call of Duty and Halo. Even Half-Life has fewer puzzles.
Contents
Content
- Half-Life 2 maps (
hl2
) - Source shared (
hl2
) - Source 2013 Singleplayer engine branch
RTX version
A ray-traced version of Half-Life 2 is currently under development by Orbifold Studios, and promoted by Nvidia, using Nvidia's RTX Remix tool.
This version aims to remaster the entire game with new RTX lighting, RTX reflections, PBR textures, and a lot more without changing the core gameplay, similar to Portal RTX.
Chapters
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![]() Point Insertion d1_trainstation_01 |
![]() "A Red Letter Day" d1_trainstation_05 |
![]() Route Kanal d1_canals_01 |
![]() Water Hazard d1_canals_06 |
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![]() Black Mesa East d1_eli_01 |
![]() "We Don't Go To Ravenholm..." d1_town_01 |
![]() Highway 17 d2_coast_01 |
![]() Sandtraps d2_coast_09 |
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![]() Nova Prospekt d2_prison_02 |
![]() Entanglement d2_prison_06 |
![]() Anticitizen One d3_c17_02 |
![]() "Follow Freeman!" d3_c17_09 |
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![]() Our Benefactors d3_citadel_01 |
![]() Dark Energy d3_breen_01 |
NPCs
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:
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Limitations/Bugs
- For more Half-Life 2 bugs, see this GitHub page.
This section only list various bugs that are commonly encountered.
☐ Unresolved bugs
The current version of Half-Life 2 in Steam lacks LDR lighting on multiple game levels (starting from d1_eli_01
until the end of Nova Prospekt). 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). Because of this, HDR is required to play the game.
This issue is not affected in previous version of the game (which use older engines and are compiled in LDR only), and is fixed in Half-Life 2: Update.
☑ Resolved bugs
There was a bug with the Dropship's gun that was unable to turn, this makes the Sandtraps chapter much easier.[1] Presents since console release on X360/PS3 (remains unfixed) and since 2010 engine update on PC.
Fixed in the current Steam version since 2022's the Steam Deck update of Half-Life 2. Some third-party mods may or may not include this fix; this page details how to fix it in your mod.
Other limitations
![Icon-Important.png](/w/images/thumb/5/5c/Icon-Important.png/10px-Icon-Important.png)
As of May 26, 2010, the branch of Source under which Half-Life 2 originally ran Source 2006 no longer exists on Steam, and subsequently replaced by the updated Source 2007 (which later was upgraded again to Source 2013. Some 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.
Technical notes
- In the 2006 version of the game, being underwater at d1_canals_01, or in some area on that same map can cause performance drop. Fixed since 2010 with the engine update.
- 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 the 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.
System Requirements
Windows (Old Engine):
- OS: Windows 98 / ME, 2000, XP or later
- CPU: 1.2 GHz
- RAM: 256 MB
- Disk space: 4.5 GB
- Direct3D 9.0 compatible video card (with atleast DirectX 7.0 compatibility level or higher)
Windows (New Engine):
- OS: Windows 7 or later
- CPU:1.7 GHz and/or Dual-core
- RAM:1GB RAM
- Disk space: 6.5 GB (15GB+ recommended)
- Nvidia GeForce FX 5700, ATI Radeon 9500 (with 128MB VRAM)
- Direct3D 9.0 compatible video card (with atleast DirectX 8.0 compatibility level or higher)
- Other: New Engine requires HDR to be enabled (due to this issue)
![Note.png](/w/images/thumb/c/cc/Note.png/10px-Note.png)
User using these OS can downgrade to previous version of the game by using the
previous
beta branch. But please note that this older branch does not include all the bug fixes that were introduced with Steam Deck update.OS X:
- OS X 10.5.8, 10.6.3 (up to 10.14.6)
- CPU: 2.0 GHz and/or Dual-core
- RAM: 1 GB
- Storage: 6.5 GB (15GB+ recommended)
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8xxx series, ATI Radeon X1600, Intel HD Graphics 3000
OpenGL 2.1 compatible - Audio: OpenAL compatible
- Other: HDR is required to be enabled (see above)
![Note.png](/w/images/thumb/c/cc/Note.png/10px-Note.png)
User can manually build Intel 64-bit/Apple Silicon version of HL2 by following this guide.
Linux:
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04, SteamOS 1.0 or later
Other Linux distros supported. - CPU: 2.0 GHz and/or Dual-core
- RAM: 1 GB
- Storage: 6.5 GB (15GB+ recommended)
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8xxx series, ATI Radeon X1600, Intel HD Graphics 3000
OpenGL 2.1 compatible - Audio: OpenAL compatible
- Other: HDR is required to be enabled (see above)
![Note.png](/w/images/thumb/c/cc/Note.png/10px-Note.png)
![Half-Life 2 Half-Life 2](/w/images/thumb/6/60/Hl2_icon.png/18px-Hl2_icon.png)
See also
- Half-Life 2 level design
- Half-Life 2: Update - a fan-made Steam-released mod aimed at bug-fixing and giving the game a mild visual upgrade.
- Synergy - a fan-made Steam-released co-op mod that allows users to play the entire Half-Life 2's campaign with multiplayer.
- Category:Source mods
External links
Half-Life 2 on Steam Community
GameBanana page
Half-Life 2 on Combine OverWiki
Half-Life 2 on Wikipedia
References
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