‘Half-Life 2’ 20th anniversary inspires massive increase in players

A new documentary, mod support and audio commentary were all released

Half-Life 2 celebrated its 20th anniversary with a bumper update which inspired a massive uptick in players.

• READ MORE: These are the video games your fave bands play on tour

Originally released in 2004, Half-Life 2 is a first-person shooter where every action inspires the story in some way. Players control Gordon Freeman, who is on a resistance mission to liberate Earth from the Combine alien empire. The game went on to sell millions of copies, won numerous “Game Of The Year” awards and is still considered one of the greatest PC titles of all time.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, developers made the game free to download on Steam this weekend (November 16) and added a number of new features. There’s a new audio commentary feature from the original team and an in-depth documentary that’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!”

Expansions Episode One and Episode Two have also been bundled into Half-Life 2 and the game finally has Steam Workshop support, making it easier to use player-made mods. Developers Valve have also created a special anniversary website, featuring old presentations and BTS footage of the game’s creation.

The release of the 20th Anniversary Edition of Half-Life 2 also inspired a massive uptick in players. Steam first started keeping track of concurrent players in 2008 and this weekend was the busiest weekend for Half-Life 2 since those records began. According to SteamDB, Half-Life 2 had a concurrent player peak of 64,085 while almost 30,000 people are still playing now (November 18). Its previous peak was 16,000 players, which happened in 2021 during the Breaking The Bar community event.

Recommended

Despite a number of planned spin-offs and sequels, Valve wouldn’t release a new Half Life game until Alyx, which launched in 2020.

In other news, Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree’s soundtrack is now available to stream, featuring 36 choice-cuts tracks from the epic score.