Valve Corporation’s first-person shooter, Half-Life, has been receiving frequent updates as its 25th anniversary approaches on November 19, 2023.
The original Half-Life has recently received a new password restricted “test” branch, which has been receiving multiple updates per day. As seen below, the “test” build is being updated on a frequent basis for Windows, Linux, and macOS platforms.
The regular updates for this unknown “test” branch of Half-Life suggest that Valve may have something planned for the game’s 25th anniversary, which will happen on November 19, 2023. Whether this has anything to do with a potential Half-Life 3 announcement is anyone’s guess.
Additionally, a Valve Corporation contractor recently took to Twitter to hint at a “big day” for Freeman, the Half-Life series protagonist. However, this may have something to do with the announcement of the upcoming Steam Deck OLED.
For the uninitiated, Half-Life is a 1998 first-person shooter created by Valve Corporation and published by Sierra Studios for Microsoft Windows. It served as Valve’s first game and the inaugural installment in the Half-Life series. In the game, players take on the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who needs to escape the Black Mesa Research Facility when it gets overrun by aliens following a failed scientific experiment. Gameplay involves a mix of melee and firearm based combat, exploration, and puzzle-solving.
Valve aimed to bring innovation to the FPS genre by creating a more immersive world rather than a standard “shooting gallery” experience. In contrast to other games of that era, players have nearly continuous control of the protagonist, and the story unfolds mainly through scripted sequences, as opposed to cutscenes. Valve developed the game using GoldSrc, which is a heavily modified version of the Quake engine licensed from id Software. It also enlisted science fiction author Marc Laidlaw to shape the plot and provide design assistance.
