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Valve celebrates Half-Life 2’s 20th anniversary with a big update

Valve has released a major update to mark the 20th anniversary of Half-Life 2, bringing a slew of improvements and new content.

Valve’s announcement itself is an interactive experience — grab the gravity gun at the bottom of the page and you can pick up just about anything on the screen and toss it around (including that can, which you can then put in the trash). “Every map in Half-Life 2 has been looked over by Valve level designers to fix longstanding bugs, restore content and features lost to time, and improve the quality of a few things like lightmap resolution and fog,” the team says. The anniversary celebration also brings good news for anyone who didn’t manage to snag a copy of Raising the Bar, the 2004 behind-the-scenes book that’s since become a coveted collector’s item: an expanded second edition is coming in 2025.

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