An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This Sunday, November 19, makes a full 25 years since the original Half-Life first hit (pre-Steam) store shelves. To celebrate the anniversary, Valve has uploaded a feature-packed “25th anniversary update” to the game on Steam, and made the title free to keep if you pick it up this weekend. Valve’s 25th Anniversary Update page details a bevy of new and modernized features added to the classic first-person shooter, including:
– Four new multiplayer maps that “push the limits of what’s possible in the Half-Life engine”
– New graphics settings, including support for a widescreen field-of-view on modern monitors and OpenGL Overbright lighting (still no official ray-tracing support, though-leave that to the modders)
– “Proper gamepad config out of the box” (so dust off that Gravis Gamepad Pro)
– Steam networking support for easier multiplayer setup
– “Verified” support for Steam Deck play (“We failed super hard” on the first verification attempt, Valve writes)
– Proper UI scaling for resolutions up to 3840×1600
– Multiplayer balancing updates (because 25 years hasn’t been enough to perfect the meta)
– New entity limits that allow mod makers to build more complex mods
– A full software renderer for the Linux version of the game
– Various bug fixes
– “Removed the now very unnecessary ‘Low video quality. Helps with slower video cards’ setting”
In addition, the new update includes a host of restored and rarely seen content, including:
– Three multiplayer maps from the “Half-Life: Further Data” CD-ROM: Double Cross, Rust Mill, and Xen DM
– Four restored multiplayer models: Ivan the Space Biker, Proto-Barney (from the alpha build), a skeleton, and Too Much Coffee Man (from “Further Data”)
– Dozens of “Further Data” sprays to tag in your multiplayer matches
– The original Half-Life: Uplink demo in playable form
