Update log
Full Half-Life 2 update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- Workshop
- Maps
- Performance
Half-Life 2 is officially 20 years old, and we're using this milestone as an opportunity to celebrate the community of players who have been enjoying it (or discovering it, or even re-discovering it) since November 16, 2004.
The complete Half-Life 2
We created a new webpage to showcase all the updates in detail, but here's a quick rundown of what's new:
Episodes One and Two are in the box. Half-Life 2 now includes the complete Episode One and Episode Two expansions along with the base game. They’re accessible from the main menu, and you will automatically advance to the next expansion after completing each one.
Developers Commentary for Half-Life 2. While the Episodes have always had commentary tracks, the base game never did... until now. We got the team back to record three and a half hours of new behind-the-scenes commentary for Half-Life 2.
Integrated Steam Workshop support. Browse, install, and play user-created content for Half-Life 2 without ever leaving the game. Look for it in the Extras menu!
Bug fixes and new graphics options. Visual pops, missing sprites, and mismatched lighting introduced in updates over the years have been scrubbed away. And we've added some settings to push the visual fidelity of Half-Life 2 farther than was allowed in the original release.
Yes, there's even a documentary!
Our Half-Life 25th anniversary documentary went so well that we invited Secret Tape back to make another one—this time focusing on Half-Life 2. And it's about a lot more than just the making of a game. Running out of money. Getting hacked, and an early version being leaked online. Being sued by our publisher. Trying to build Steam. It's all in there!
As supplementary material to go along with the documentary, we've unearthed a handful of old presentations from across Half-Life 2's development. Find videos from E3 2003, E3 2002, and Siggraph 2000 on the 20th Anniversary Update website.
We're also (Re) Raising the Bar:
Nearly two decades since it first went out of print, Raising the Bar is set to return in 2025 with an expanded second edition—offering a comprehensive look into the creation of the Half-Life 2, along with never-before-seen concept art from Episode One and Episode Two, and ideas and experiments for the third episode that never came to be.
To everyone who has played Half-Life 2 over the last twenty years, thank you.
From now through the weekend (until November 18th at 10am Pacific) Half-Life 2 is free to own, so if you've never played before, grab it now and keep it forever.
Bug Fixes and Change Notes
New Content
Added 3.5 hours of Developer Commentary by members of the Half-Life 2 team.
Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two are now playable from the Half-Life 2 main menu.
- Half-Life 2Lost Coast has been added to the Extras menu.
Added Steam Workshop support. Play entire campaigns or replace weapons, enemies, UI, and more with content created by the community.
Added custom Steam Game Recording gameplay events and phases throughout the game.
Rendering and Graphics
Fixed issues causing props or entire maps to be fully bright or fully dark depending on settings.
Added bicubic filtering for lightmaps to produce smoother shadows. It can be enabled by setting Shader Detail to Very High.
Fixed missing grass detail sprites in many maps.
Added settings to enable Classic Effects that were originally in Half-Life 2. These effects can also be enabled using r_classic_blood or r_classic_fire.
Source