Half-Life 2
In the codexAction

Half-Life 2

Reawakened from stasis in the occupied metropolis of City 17, Gordon Freeman is joined by Alyx Vance as he leads a desperate human resistance. Experience the landmark first-person shooter packed with immersive world-building, boundary-pushing physics, and exhilarating combat.

DEV: ValvePUB: ValveAppID 220

Is Half-Life 2 still being updated? — the short answer, with the evidence.

97.5
Exceptional

Elixir Rating

97.6% of 279,953 Steam reviews are positive, which after adjusting for sample size gives a reception score of 97.5. It is a finished game, so no support adjustment applies either way.

reception 97.5·support +0.0·Exceptional

Computed from Steam’s own review tally and observable developer activity — never from anyone’s opinion of the game. How this is calculated

Should you look into this?

From Steam's own record

Current price

$1.99$9.99−80%

Development

Insufficient evidence

Last heard from developers

over a year ago

Historical posting rhythm

every ~42.5 days

Substantial updates (6 mo)

0

Current silence

cannot be judged

Our news coverage needs a fresh check; missing posts are not evidence that development has stopped. It is currently 80% below its usual price.

Last successful news check: Oct 7, 2026, 2:03 PM UTC. This is when we checked Steam, separate from when the developer last posted. A fresh check is needed before judging current activity.

Two years of development

■ substantial ■ routine

Nov2025FebMayAugNov2026FebMayAug

5 announcements · 3 substantial · 21 months with nothing

Recent Transmissions

30 entries in codex

PC GamerSep 27, 2026
This ambitious Half-Life 2 mod asks: what if Iron Lung had a submarine and an airship?

Like many people, I'm a big fan of quickfire submarine horror adventure Iron Lung. Yet despite receiving rave reviews and spawning a film adaptation by Markiplier, surprisingly few games have picked up its baton of vehicular terror. There a…

PC GamerJul 5, 2026
One of our favorite Half-Life 2 mods is getting a stealth game prequel where you're a Combine assassin preying on the human resistance

The cult classic Half-Life 2 mod series Entropy: Zero has another entry in the works, and speaking as a fan of Thief, Deus Ex, and all things immersive sim, Entropy: Zero 2 - Progenitors may be the most exciting one yet... Read more.

PC GamerJun 27, 2026
Web port wizards produce browser versions of Half-Life 2 and Portal

It's been established that Doom can run on produce, but porting wizardry doesn't start and end with blasting cacodemons on increasingly ludicrous hardware setups. It's sometimes the simple things that stick out most, like this web browser p…

Rock, Paper, ShotgunMay 18, 2026
"That lore terrifies me": Ex-Valve writer Chet Faliszek isn't interested in writing a Half-Life 3, as he wouldn't touch a sequel "with with a 10-foot pole"

Stop it. Stop trying to make him do it. He won't. He will not do it. He's been very clear with you. Yes, you, seemingly random commenter who's suggested that making Half-Life 3 would be a piece of cake. Former Valve writer Chet Faliszek doe…

PC GamerMay 17, 2026
Former Valve writer Chet Faliszek has no interest in writing Half-Life 3: 'I don't want to touch that with a 10-foot pole'

Chet Faliszek opens the above video by explaining, "This is not saying that something's happening, not trying to allude to anything. I'm going to talk about some stuff from like 10-plus years ago. I'm not trying to say anything. OK?" Becaus…

PC GamerMay 3, 2026
You're not crazy, that one sewer puzzle in Half-Life 2 really was harder 22 years ago

YouTuber Ocelot, who specializes in videos comparing different versions of games like Silent Hill 3 and Resident Evil: Code Veronica, recently took to analyzing different versions of Half-Life 2. Valve's FPS may not seem as fruitful a topic…

Rock, Paper, ShotgunMar 25, 2026
Imagine GTA with AI-generated characters "just going along with whatever insane thing you say," muses Valve writer, absent-mindedly spotlighting what terrifies me about genAI

Like many people at companies preoccupied with discovering the next "goose that lays the golden egg", Half-Life 2 and Portal writer Erik Wolpaw has been "poking around" with generative AI. He and a small team at Valve have been testing out …

PC GamerDec 12, 2025
C'mon, Remedy, you can't use the words 'Rise and Shine' in your TGA trailer—don't you know you're hurting all those hopeful fans in r/Halflife?

Hope springs eternal, and there's no better evidence of that than the members of subreddit r/Halflife, who have been waiting all year for the announcement of Half-Life 3, or Half-Life X, or whatever the next Half-Life game will be called...…

PC GamerNov 22, 2025
A former Valve dev revealed how, while a VR version of Half-Life 2 was being made, a single metro cop's toe created a 'time-travelling' bug that softlocked all versions of the game

One of the coolest things about Half-Life 2 is its physics engine, but as anyone who has played a physics-based game will know, even the best-in-class tech is prone to quirks here and there. Valve's legendary narrative shooter was no except…

PC GamerNov 18, 2025
Half-Life fans are in a frenzy over the prospect of a Half-Life 3 announcement that there's (almost) no good reason to believe is happening

Half-Life 3 fever has once again broken out across social media, and the Half-Life subreddit is full of both earnestly hopeful and sarcastically dismissive posts about the supposedly imminent announcement of a sequel to Valve's landmark 200…

PC GamerNov 18, 2025
OK, for real though, what's the chance of a Half-Life 3 announcement happening soon? Here's what we know

fter two decades of Half-Life 3 rumors, each new burst of hope looks a lot like Charlie Brown once again getting set to kick a football. None of the suspicious lines of CS:GO code or yarn-webbed conspiracy board YouTube videos have actually…

PC GamerJul 25, 2025
Half-Life 2 just got a patch that fixes a progress-blocking teleporter bug and makes a train easier to race

Last year, Valve brought the original development team back together for a 20th anniversary Half-Life 2 update. It integrated the post-launch episodes, added a new developer commentary track, brought in Steam Workshop support, and added a h…

Community AnnouncementsJul 23, 2025
July 23, 2025 Update

Restored speed of the train near the end of Highway 17 to better match the original shipped difficulty. Fixed missing collision that was allowing NPCs to shoot through some walls in Entanglement. Fixed issue where Alyx could obstruct the pl…

PCGamesNJul 14, 2025
Forgotten Half-Life 2 zombie mod from 2007 suddenly explodes on Steam

If Half-Life is one of the most influential videogame series in history, it's not only because of Valve, Gordon Freeman, and the actual FPS games themselves. Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are nexus points for a whole generation of PC classics. …

PC GamerJun 6, 2025
Half-Life 2 becomes a loot-hoarding roguelike dungeon crawl in this Next Fest mod demo

It is the year 2025 and everything is a roguelite now. Even the games of yesteryear are getting randomizers and procedural generation shoehorned in, and Half-Life 2 isn't escaping either. Good thing that SourceWorld is pretty dang fun, if i…

PCGamesNMay 28, 2025
Half-Life 2 will never be the same as legendary mod officially comes to Steam

How many times have you completed Half-Life 2? In the 21 years (yeesh) since Valve's genre-changing FPS game was first released, I'd speculate that I've destroyed the Citadel, escaped City 17, and launched the rocket from White Forest on no…

PC GamerMay 20, 2025
Former Valve writer Marc Laidlaw says he 'retired too hard', but there's no way he's coming back for Half-Life 3: 'We need new stuff, [not] me going 'Well the G-Man wouldn't do that in my day''

new episode of Netflix's Love, Death and Robots is based on a short story written back in the 80s by former Valve writer and now professional retiree Marc Laidlaw. Laidlaw left Valve in 2016 but, in a new interview with IGN, wonders whether…

PCGamesNMay 8, 2025
Half-Life 2 RTX ruined Ravenholm, but those big lighting problems just got fixed

It seems like rumors pointing to Half-Life 3's existence are reaching a new fever pitch lately, but, as has been the case for more than a decade now, it's probably better to focus your attention on games in the series that actually exist un…

PC GamerMay 3, 2025
Valve only wants to make new Half-Life games if they push the medium forward, but what could it push forward next?

When asked to explain why Valve never made Half-Life 2: Episode 3 for the recent 20th anniversary documentary, Gabe Newell said that he "couldn't figure out why doing Episode 3 was pushing anything forward.".. Read more.

PC GamerApr 8, 2025
Half-Life 2's 2003 beta reveals the mystery behind a City 17 river that once led players to the foot of the Citadel

There are various unfinished versions of Half-Life 2 that have come to light over the years, all of which reveal interesting things about how Valve's plans changed over time as it painstakingly refined and pruned one of the PC gaming greats…

PC GamerApr 7, 2025
Arkane was 'devastated' by its cancelled Half-Life 2 Ravenholm game, but the masterclass it got from late visionary artist Viktor Antonov 'was pivotal to what would become Arkane later'

One of the most unfortunate missed shots in gaming is that of Arkane's cancelled Ravenholm game—in case you're unfamiliar, circa 2007-2008, Arkane was working on a standalone spin-off that would see players returning to Half-Life 2's zombie…

PCGamesNMar 19, 2025
Half-Life 2 RTX is struggling on Steam, as players face performance woes

Half-Life 2 is one of the best loved FPS games in the genre's history, even with its cliffhanger story still unresolved nearly two decades since its last episodic expansion launched. Unsurprisingly, then, fans of Valve's shooter series have…

PCGamesNMar 18, 2025
The Half-Life 2 RTX demo takes five times more HDD space than Half-Life 2 itself

After what feels like eons of waiting, the Half-Life 2 RTX demo is finally here. You can try two levels of the fan-made enhancement to Valve's epochal FPS right now, turning the classic shooter on its head with an array of game-changing new…

PCGamesNMar 13, 2025
Nvidia just announced a free playable Half-Life 2 RTX demo, and it's coming soon

Soon you'll be able to don Gordon Freeman's HEV suit in full ray-traced glory, smashing your trusty crowbar into headcrabs with realistic shadows and reflections, as Nvidia has just announced that a playable Half-Life 2 RTX demo will be ava…

PCGamesNFeb 19, 2025
Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and even Day of Defeat have been updated by Valve

It was choppy, unreliable, and populated almost entirely by screamy mic spammers, but my word, do I miss the days of Half-Life Deathmatch Source. It's one of the enduring images of my own PC gaming past - a team of HLDM Source players, all …

PC GamerFeb 16, 2025
Viktor Antonov, the visionary artist who defined Half-Life 2 and Dishonored, has died

Viktor Antonov, the Bulgarian artist who served as art director on both Half-Life 2 and Dishonored, has died at the age of 52. The news comes by way of some of Antonov's former colleagues in the industry, who also shared their thoughts on A…

Community AnnouncementsFeb 11, 2025
Half-Life 2 - Update

An update has been released for Half-Life 2 and the Episodes. - Fixed a Linux client crash on launch. - Localization updates.

PCGamesNJan 14, 2025
I played Half-Life 2 RTX with Nvidia neural rendering, and it looks damn fine

Gordon Freeman's classic toxic crowbar adventure is about to get even more realistic, as the Half-Life 2 RTX Remix project is working on adding Nvidia neural rendering to the game, in addition to ray tracing. I had a chance to play the game…

PC GamerJan 12, 2025
Valve's Steam page currently lists a second mystery game alongside Deadlock, sending Half-Life 3 theorists into another frenzy of speculation

The Half-Life 3 speculation mill has been running hot over the last few months. G-Man's voice actor Mike Shapiro rang in the new year by posting a video in which he refers to "unexpected surprises" in the staggering voice of Half-Life's dim…

PC GamerJan 9, 2025
If you missed it over the holidays, this noir Half-Life 2 mod turns you into a hardboiled detective in Prohibition-era Chicago

Hear me out. Let's say instead of violent nerd Gordon Freeman wasting alien invaders in City 17, Half-Life 2 was actually about a gritty hardboiled detective fighting corruption in Prohibition-era Chicago. That's the concept behind The Burt…