| Half-Life | |
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  The series' logo, an orangelambda, is a prominent symbol throughout the series. | |
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| First release | Half-Life November 19, 1998 |
| Latest release | Half-Life: Alyx March 23, 2020 |
Half-Life is a series offirst-person shooter games created byValve. The games combine shooting combat, puzzles and storytelling, and are played entirely from thefirst-person perspective.
The originalHalf-Life, Valve's first product, was released in 1998 forWindows. Players controlsilent protagonistGordon Freeman, a scientist working at theBlack Mesa Research Facility who must survive an alien invasion caused by the facility. The use of innovativescripted sequences instead ofcutscenes were influential on the first-person shooter genre, and the game inspired numerous community-developedmods, leading to the release of the multiplayer gamesCounter-Strike andDay of Defeat.Half-Life was followed by the expansionsOpposing Force (1999),Blue Shift (2001) andDecay (2001), developed byGearbox Software.
In 2004, Valve releasedHalf-Life 2 which was developed using theirnew game engine, and features a moredystopian setting, stronger focus on characters, and implementingphysics-based gameplay. Set twenty years after the events ofHalf-Life, players control Freeman in joining a resistance to liberate humanity from an alien force known as theCombine. It was followed by theepisodic sequelsEpisode One (2006) andEpisode Two (2007), which focus on the aftermath of the base game's narrative.
Also set in the same universe asHalf-Life is thePortal series; the first game wasreleased in 2007 followed by asequel in 2011. Both games focus on first-personpuzzle-platform gameplay using wormholes created by a portal gun.
Over the following decade,numerousHalf-Life games were canceled, includingEpisode Three, a version ofHalf-Life 3, and games developed byJunction Point Studios andArkane Studios. In 2020, after years of speculation, Valve releasedHalf-Life: Alyx, which was developed exclusively forvirtual reality headsets. It is a prequel set five years beforeHalf-Life 2, where players control Freeman's eventual allyAlyx Vance in her quest to rescue her father from Combine forces and uncover their mysterious "super-weapon".
TheHalf-Life series is recognized by critics and industry experts for producing some of the most influential first-person shooter games for the genre, both of which have been highlighted for their advancements towards immersive and varied gameplay, level design, storytelling, visuals and sound.Half-Life andHalf-Life 2, as well asPortal andPortal 2, have in particular been cited by numerous publications in being considered among thegreatest video games ever made.
| 1998 | Half-Life |
|---|---|
| 1999 | Half-Life: Opposing Force |
| 2000 | |
| 2001 | Half-Life: Blue Shift |
| Half-Life: Decay | |
| 2002 | |
| 2003 | |
| 2004 | Half-Life: Source[broken anchor] |
| Half-Life 2 | |
| Half-Life 2: Deathmatch | |
| 2005 | Half-Life 2: Lost Coast |
| 2006 | Half-Life Deathmatch: Source[broken anchor] |
| Half-Life 2: Episode One | |
| 2007 | Half-Life 2: Episode Two |
| 2008 | |
| 2009 | |
| 2010 | |
| 2011 | |
| 2012 | |
| 2013 | |
| 2014 | |
| 2015 | |
| 2016 | |
| 2017 | |
| 2018 | |
| 2019 | |
| 2020 | Half-Life: Alyx |
Valve's first product,Half-Life, was released on November 19, 1998, and published by Sierra On-Line forWindows.[1] Players controlGordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist at theBlack Mesa Research Facility, where an experiment accidentally causes a dimensional rift and triggers an alien invasion.[2] Unlike many other games at the time, the player has almost uninterrupted control of Freeman, and the story is told mostly throughscripted sequences.[1]Half-Life received acclaim for its graphics, gameplay and seamless narrative. It won over 50 "Game of the Year" awards[3] and is considered one of the most influential FPS games and one of thebest video games ever made.[4][5]
Half-Life was followed by anexpansion pack,Opposing Force, on November 1, 1999,[6] developed byGearbox Software.[7] Players controlUS Marine corporalAdrian Shephard, who fights a new group of aliens andblack operations units.
Opposing Force was received favorably by critics,[8] many citing the game as being as influential on setting expansion pack standards as the original game had been in influencing the overall genre.[9][10][11] The game won the Computer Game of the YearInteractive Achievement Award of 2000 from theAcademy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.[12]
Gearbox went on to developBlue Shift,Half-Life's second expansion pack. LikeOpposing Force,Blue Shift was published by Sierra Entertainment. Announced in 2000, the game was initially developed as a bonus campaign for theDreamcast port ofHalf-Life;[13] however, the port was cancelled andBlue Shift was instead released for Windows on June 12, 2001.[14][15]
Blue Shift puts the player in the position ofBarney Calhoun, a security guard working at Black Mesa. The game takes place within the early parts ofHalf-Life, with Calhoun attempting to escape the facility with a small group of scientists.Blue Shift also includes a High Definition pack, which upgrades the quality of the models and textures in bothBlue Shift and the preceding games in the series.[16] Critics praised the atmosphere and new graphics, but noticed the lack of new content and short length.[17][18][19]
The third expansion forHalf-Life wasDecay. The game was again developed by Gearbox and published by Sierra. However, unlike previous games,Decay was released exclusively with the PlayStation 2 version ofHalf-Life.[2]Decay is unique within theHalf-Life series as the onlycooperative game—two players must work together to progress through the game.[20]Decay focuses on two of Freeman's colleagues, Gina Cross and Colette Green, as the two work with other scientists to counter the effects of the dimensional rift and ultimately attempt to close it.
Released on November 14, 2001,Decay received a weak but overall positive reception from critics, many reviewers stating that it was fun to play through with a friend, but that the game's more puzzle-oriented gameplay detracted from the overall experience.[21][22][23] An unofficial Windows port was released in September 2008.[24]
On November 16, 2004, Valve releasedHalf-Life 2. The game had a six-year development cycle, which saw several delays and the leak of the game's source code in October, 2003.Half-Life 2 returns the player to the role of Gordon Freeman. Set twenty years after the original game,[25] Earth has been occupied by theCombine, atransdimensional race that exploited the events of the first game to invade. The G-Man inserts Freeman intoCity 17 inEastern Europe to combat the Combine occupation. Considered one of thegreatest video games of all time,Half-Life 2 was praised for its advances incomputer animation,sound,narration,computer graphics,artificial intelligence andphysics, and won more than 35 Game of the Year awards.Half-Life 2 was the first game to use Valve'sSteam content delivery system, a system that eventually led to Valve falling out with publisherSierra Entertainment.[26]
On October 27, 2005, Valve releasedLost Coast, an additional level demonstratinghigh-dynamic-range rendering (HDR).[27] Consisting of a single map,Lost Coast is based on a cut segment ofHalf-Life 2.[28] The player, as Freeman, climbs a cliff to destroy a Combine artillery launcher in a monastery.[29]
In May 2006, Valve announced a trilogy ofepisodic games that would continue theHalf-Life 2 story, with the final episode planned for release by Christmas 2007.[30] Valve's president,Gabe Newell, said the approach would allow Valve to release products more quickly after the six-yearHalf-Life 2 development, and that he considered the trilogy the equivalent ofHalf-Life 3.[31] According to Newell, whereHalf-Life saw the G-Man transform Freeman into his tool, andHalf-Life 2 saw Freeman being used by G-Man, the episodes would see G-Man lose control.[31]
Episode One was released on June 1, 2006. The player controls Freeman as he and Alyx escape City 17 before adark energy reactor core destroys it. It introduced several graphical effects, including new lighting features and more advancedfacial animation. The story focuses on Alyx.Episode One received a generally positive critical reaction, although the short length was a common point of criticism.[32]
Episode Two was released for Windows,Xbox 360 andPlayStation 3 on October 10, 2007, as part of the compilationThe Orange Box. It was distributed digitally on Steam and at retail by Electronic Arts.Episode Two focuses on expansive environments, travel and less linear play. As Freeman, the player travels with Alyx into the surrounding countryside, pursued by Combine forces.Episode Two's new technologies and gameplay features were praised by reviewers; however, though it was significantly longer thanEpisode 1, the length was again a point of criticism.[33][34]
Valve releasedHalf-Life: Alyx, avirtual reality (VR) game, on March 23, 2020, for Windows.[35] In this prequel toHalf-Life 2, players control Alyx as she and her father Eli establish the resistance against the Combine in City 17. Described by Valve as its "flagship" VR game, it was developed using theSource 2 engine and supports all PC-compatibleVR headsets. Players use VR to interact with the environment and fight enemies, using gravity gloves to manipulate objects, similarly to thegravity gun fromHalf-Life 2.Alyx was released to acclaim.[36] Reviewers at publications such asVG247,Tom's Hardware andVideo Games Chronicle described it as VR's "killer app".[37][38][39]
SeveralHalf-Life games have been canceled, includingHalf-Life 2: Episode Three,[40] a version ofHalf-Life 3,[41] and games developed byJunction Point Studios[42] andArkane Studios.[43]
ThePortal series, which takes place in the same universe as theHalf-Life games, is a series ofpuzzle games developed by Valve. The first game,Portal, was released on October 10, 2007, followed byPortal 2 on April 19, 2011.[44][45] TheHalf-Life writer,Marc Laidlaw, opposed the crossover withPortal, feeling it "made both universes smaller", and said later: "I just had to react as gracefully as I could to the fact that it was going there without me. It didn't make any sense except from a resource-restricted point of view."[46]
In April 2000, Valve acquired the rights to the fan-mademodificationCounter-Strike. After some cooperation between the original team and Valve's developers,[47] Valve sold the game in retail, retitledHalf-Life: Counter-Strike.[48] Set in various locations around the world with little connection to the events of the mainHalf-Life story, the game is a multiplayer shooter in which players assume the roles of members of combating teams of the governmental counter-terrorist forces and various terrorist militants opposing them. Due to originally being a mod ofHalf-Life, the game shared several assets with the 1998 game, including Black Mesa containers, vehicles and scientists, with the Black Mesa logos visible in several maps in the retail version implicitly setting them in the same universe. It was bundled withHalf-Life in many subsequent packages, includingHalf-Life: Platinum Pack andHalf-Life: Platinum.[49]
WhenHalf-Life: Counter-Strike wasremade asCounter-Strike: Source, it was bundled in all retail versions ofHalf-Life 2, as well as all of the initial digital versions. Some game journalists referred to it as "Half-Life 2's multiplayer version."[50] Both the standard retail edition and the Bronze digital edition ofHalf-Life 2 came withCounter-Strike: Source, while the retail Collector's Edition and the digital Gold edition also includedDay of Defeat: Source andHalf-Life: Source.[51]Half-Life: Counter-Strikespawned its own series which gradually became separate from the mainHalf-Life games, bar occasional references (such as anEaster egg referencingPortal present inCounter-Strike: Global Offensive).[52]
Black Mesa is a third-partyremake of the originalHalf-Life, developed and published by Crowbar Collective and made in theSource engine. Originally published as a freemod in September 2012, it was approved by Valve for a commercial release.[53][54] It was fully released on March 6, 2020, for Windows andLinux. It was praised by reviewers, who likened it to an official Valve game. On the review aggregatorOpenCritic,Black Mesa had an average 87/100 review score with 100% approval rating based on 14 reviews.[55]
The success of theHalf-Life series has spurred the creation of several spin-off games forHalf-Life 2.Codename Gordon (sometimes calledCodename: Gordon) is atwo-dimensionalFlashsidescrollershooter developed by NuclearVision, and was released over Valve's Steam online delivery system on May 18, 2004, as a promotional game for the then-upcomingHalf-Life 2.[56]
Characters fromHalf-Life have appeared in other games.Peggle Extreme, a special edition ofPeggle bundled with the PC version ofThe Orange Box features levels based onHalf-Life 2,Team Fortress 2 andPortal. The headcrab is also an unlockable character inSuper Meat Boy when bought on Steam. The Headcrab also appeared in an April Fools event in the MMOVindictus as an event item along with the Crowbar, possibly due to the game being created on the Source Engine as well. In the gameMagicka there is a playable character (after the addition of aDLC), which closely resembles the original zombie from the Half-Life universe, equipped with a crowbar. Gordon also appears inRenegade Ops and the headcrab is available as a pet inTorchlight 2.
Half-Life has also inspired a number of fan-mademods, some which have gained recognition on their own.Garry's Mod started as asandbox mode usingHalf-Life 2 assets but since has become a commercial product and given users the ability to incorporate other assets.[57] Among notable fan-made campaigns isMinerva, which was designed to extend the story fromHalf-Life 2.[58]
TheHalf-Life franchise has received critical praise for its in-depth fictional universe, including numerous characters who would go on to become well known in the gaming sphere. The originalHalf-Life introducesGordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility who serves as the main silent playable protagonist for the franchise. Freeman is hired and put into stasis by theG-Man, an enigmatic and questionable businessman with capabilities and powers beyond any ordinary human being. The expansion packs to the original game introduce other protagonists and characters, such asCorporal Adrian Shephard inHalf-Life: Opposing Force and Black Mesa security guardBarney Calhoun inHalf-Life: Blue Shift (who reappears in theHalf-Life 2 games).Half-Life 2 and the games following it introduce a new, more focused cast of characters fighting the oppressiveCombine Empire. This includesAlyx Vance, a prominent member of the Resistance and the daughter of former Black Mesa scientistEli Vance. Alyx is the protagonist ofHalf-Life: Alyx.
The games have depicted numerous alien races and creatures, many from the Xen border world. Some of the most notable include the Vortigaunts, a highly intelligent alien race that often assists Freeman after he saves them from oppression, and headcrabs, parasitic aliens who latch on to heads and convert humans into mindless zombies, sometimes used asbiological weapons. Other alien species depicted include antlions, human-sized burrowing insectoids; bullsquids, acid-shooting tentacled predators; and barnacles, ceiling-dwelling amorphous creatures who capture others with their sticky tongue.
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The developer of theHalf-Life series,Valve, was founded in 1996 inKirkland, Washington by the formerMicrosoft employeesMike Harrington andGabe Newell. Valve began working on the firstHalf-Life soon after formation, and settled on a concept for a horror-themed 3Daction game, using theQuake engine as licensed byid Software. The game was a hit at the 1997E3 convention, where its animation system andartificial intelligence were demonstrated.[59]
The success led to its firstexpansion pack,Half-Life: Opposing Force, which was developed byGearbox Software, a new company based inPlano,Texas, and announced on April 15, 1999.[7] The Gearbox founder,Randy Pitchford, said Valve gave them the project to allow Valve to focus on future games.[60]Opposing Force was demonstrated at the 1999 E3 convention, where new locations, characters and the story were revealed.[61]
The secondHalf-Life expansion pack,Half-Life: Blue Shift, was again developed by Gearbox Software and announced by its publisher,Sierra Entertainment, on August 30, 2000.[62] Sierra intended to releaseBlue Shift for theDreamcast, and it was set to include higher detail models and textures[63] that were double thepolygon count of the models fromHalf-Life.[64] However, after several months of delays, Sierra terminated the Dreamcast version ofBlue Shift on June 16, 2001,[14] and instead released it for Windows on June 12.[15] Afterward, Gearbox began working on aHalf-Life game for the PlayStation 2. The game,Decay, was showcased atE3 2001, where Gearbox demonstrated the game's use of new model sets,[65] which were around twice as detailed as those inBlue Shift.[66]
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary by Valve | |
| Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary by Valve |
For several years, Valve secretly worked onHalf-Life 2. Valve developed a newgame engine,Source. It comes packaged with a heavily modified version of theHavok physics engine that allows for an extra dimension of interactivity in both single-player and online environments.[67] In the episodic games that followedHalf-Life 2, Valve made minor tweaks to the game's engine. InEpisode One, Valve modified Alyx's AI to allow her to react to player actions.[68] The game runs on an upgraded version of Valve's proprietarySource engine, and features both the engine's advanced lighting effects, and a new version of its facial animation/expression technology.[69]
The designerRobin Walker said Valve usedHalf-Life games to "solve some interesting collision of technology and art that had reared itself".[70] For the originalHalf-Life, they expanded the role of narrative in FPS games; forHalf-Life 2, they explored characters and physics systems, and refined these ideas in theHalf-Life 2 episodes.[70] Valve madeseveral attempts to develop furtherHalf-Life games, but could not settle on a direction and itsflat management structure made it difficult for projects to gain momentum.[71] Walker said Valve failed to find a unifying idea that provided a sense of "wonderment, or opening, or expansion".[70] In January 2016, Laidlaw left Valve.[72] He said he had tired of the FPS genre and that he had "always hoped that we'd stumble into a more expansive vocabulary or grammar for storytelling within the FPS medium, one that would let you do more than shoot or push buttons, or push crates".[46]
In the mid-2010s, Valve began experimenting with virtual reality (VR). They built prototypes using their various intellectual properties such asPortal, and found thatHalf-Life best suited VR.[73] Their flagship VR game,Half-Life: Alyx, entered production using Valve's newSource 2 engine in 2016,[74] with the largest team in Valve's history, including members ofCampo Santo, a studio Valve acquired in 2018.[35][73]
On February 6, 2013, while speaking at the 2013DICE conference about storytelling in games and film,J. J. Abrams and Gabe Newell announced that they had plans for a game and a film collaboration. Abrams said, "There's an idea we have for a game that we'd like to work with Valve on," while Newell said, "We're going to figure out if we can make aPortal movie orHalf-Life movie together".[75][76] In an interview in March 2016, Abrams stated that while he has been working on many other projects since, he still has plans to direct these films in the future, with both films in the writing stage.[77]
A short film,Half-Life: Uplink, was developed by Cruise Control, a British marketing agency, and released on March 15, 1999. However, Sierra withdrew it from circulation after Sierra and Valve had failed to resolve licensing issues with Cruise Control over the film. The critical reception of the film was very poor. The film's plot was that of a journalist attempting to infiltrate theBlack Mesa Research Facility and discover what was happening there.[78][79][80][81]
In early 2009, the Purchase Brothers, aToronto-based film company, released a five-minute film based onHalf-Life 2: Episode One,Half-Life: Escape from City 17. The film combines live-action footage with 3D animation created using theSource SDK.[82] It was well received by Valve.[83] On August 25, 2010, they released a nearly 15-minute-long sequel.
In late 2010, a trailer for aHalf-Life inspired independent short film,Beyond Black Mesa, was released. Directed by Brian Curtin, it follows the characterAdrian Shephard.[84] The full short film was released online on January 21, 2011.
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In December 2008, Valve announced that the two mainHalf-Life games had sold 15.8 million units in retail (9.3m for the first, 6.5m for the second), while theHalf-Life expansions[85] had sold 1.9 million (Opposing Force: 1.1 million,Blue Shift: 800,000) andHalf-Life 2 expansions 1.4 million units (all forEpisode One) by the end of November 2008.
Additionally,The Orange Box, which includedHalf-Life 2 and both of its episodic expansions, sold 3 million units at retail by November 2008. This put franchise sales at around 18.8 million full games (Half-Life: 9.3m,Half-Life 2: 6.5m) and approximately 6.3 million expansions (Opposing Force: 1.1m,Blue Shift: 0.8m,Episode One: 1.4m,Episode 2: 3.0m) at the same month.[48]
These figures did not account for digital sales.Half-Life: Counter-Strike sold 4.2 million units standalone by the same time, while its remake,Counter-Strike: Source was bundled with every sold retail copy ofHalf-Life 2.[48]Forbes reported that, including digital sales,Half-Life 2 had sold over 12 million copies by February 2011.[86]
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