Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original Half-Life, Half-Life 2 is played from a first-person perspective, combining combat, puzzles, and storytelling. It adds features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. The player controls Gordon Freeman, who joins a resistance effort to liberate Earth from the alien Combine empire.
Half-Life 2 was created using Valve's Source game engine, which was developed simultaneously. Development lasted five years and cost US $40million. Valve's president, Gabe Newell, set his team the goal of redefining the FPS genre. They integrated the Havok physics engine, which simulates real-world physics, to reinforce the sense of presence and create new gameplay. They also developed the characterization, with more detailed character models and animations.
Valve announced Half-Life 2 at E3 2003 with a release date of September of that year. They failed to meet the release date, leading to fan backlash. In October, the unfinished source code was published online, leading to more backlash and damage to the team's morale.
Half-Life 2 was released on Steam on November 16, 2004. It won 39 Game of the Year awards and, like its predecessor, has been cited as one of the most influential FPS games and among the greatest games ever made. It was ported to the Xbox, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, macOS, and Linux. By 2011, it had sold 12 million copies. Half-Life 2 was followed by the free extra level Lost Coast and the episodic sequels Episode One and Episode Two. In 2020, after canceling Episode Three and several further Half-Life projects, Valve released a prequel, Half-Life: Alyx.
Gameplay
Like the original Half-Life, Half-Life 2 is a single-player first-person shooter in which players control Gordon Freeman. It features combat, exploration, jumping challenges, and puzzle-solving, and narrative elements conveyed through scripted sequences. Weapons include a pistol, submachine gun, shotgun, and the powerful Combine pulse rifle. With the pheromone item, enemy antlions become allies and can be called to the player or sent to attack enemies.Half-Life 2 introduces detailed physics simulation. With the new gravity gun, players can repel objects or pull them from a distance. For example, objects can be fired at enemies, held as shields, or placed to reach new areas, and enemy grenades can be caught and thrown back. The player must also use physics to solve puzzles. Half-Life 2 also adds sections in which the player controls an airboat and a dune buggy.
Plot
After the alien invasion at the Black Mesa Research Facility, a multidimensional alien empire known as the Combine has conquered Earth. Approximately twenty years after being placed in stasis, Gordon Freeman is inserted into a train bound for City 17 by the G-Man. Helped by the undercover Resistance member Barney Calhoun, Gordon attempts to reach the laboratory of Dr. Isaac Kleiner but is subdued by Combine officers. He is rescued by Alyx Vance, who guides him to the laboratory. Kleiner's attempt to teleport Gordon to the Resistance base fails, and Gordon is momentarily teleported to the Citadel, the skyscraper headquarters of Dr. Wallace Breen, the former Black Mesa administrator and the Combine's puppet ruler. Gordon uses an airboat to progress to the base via the city's canal system, eluding Combine forces.At the base, Gordon reunites with Alyx's father, Dr. Eli Vance, and meets Dr. Judith Mossman. Alyx introduces Gordon to her pet robot, Dog, and gives Gordon the gravity gun. Combine forces storm the base and capture Eli and Mossman. Gordon diverts through the zombie-infested town of Ravenholm, aided by its lone inhabitant, Father Grigori, to a Resistance outpost whose occupants provide him with a dune buggy. He drives along the coastline of depleted water levels to reach the Combine prison of Nova Prospekt, where Eli and Mossman are being held. Gordon and Alyx reunite, locate Eli, and discover that Mossman is a Combine spy. Before they can stop her, Mossman teleports herself and Eli to the Citadel. The teleporter explodes moments after Gordon and Alyx use it to escape Nova Prospekt.
Returning to Kleiner's lab, Gordon and Alyx learn that the teleporter malfunctioned and that a week has passed, during which time the Resistance has used the attack on Nova Prospekt to launch an armed rebellion against the Combine. Aided by Barney and Dog, Gordon fights his way to the Citadel. Inside, a security system vaporizes his weapons but inadvertently super-charges the gravity gun; this helps Gordon climb the tower. He is captured and taken in a transport pod to Breen's private office, near the Citadel's apex, where he and Mossman are waiting with Eli and Alyx as captives. Breen reveals that he plans to use them as leverage to negotiate with the Combine, contradicting what he had told Mossman. Angered, Mossman frees the captives and Breen attempts to escape using a teleporter. Gordon destroys the reactor and Breen falls into the abyss. Moments after the reactor explodes, the G-Man reappears and freezes time, praises Gordon's actions, and returns him to stasis.
Development
Development of Half-Life 2 began in June 1999, six months after the release of the original Half-Life. It was developed by a team of 82, or around 100 people including voice actors. Valve's president, Gabe Newell, wanted to redefine the FPS genre, saying: "Why spend four years of your life building something that isn't innovative and is basically pointless? If Half-Life 2 isn't viewed as the best PC game of all time, it's going to completely bum out most of the guys on this team." Newell gave his team no deadline and a "virtually unlimited" budget, promising to fund the project himself if necessary. They used Valve's new in-house game engine, Source, developed simultaneously.Setting and characters
Whereas Half-Life was set in a single location, the Black Mesa research facility, Valve wanted "a much more epic and global feel" for the sequel. One concept had the player teleporting between planets, which was discarded as it would make continuity between levels difficult. At the suggestion of the art director, Viktor Antonov, who was Bulgarian, the team settled on a city in an Eastern European location. In this early concept, players would start at the boarding of the Borealis, an icebreaker bound for the city. Nova Prospekt was conceived as a small rail depot built on an old prison in the wasteland and grew from a stopping-off point to the destination itself.After observing how players had connected to minor characters in Half-Life, the team developed the characterization, with more detailed character models and realistic animation. The animator Ken Birdwell studied the work of the psychologist Paul Ekman, who had researched how facial muscles express emotion. The writer Marc Laidlaw created family relationships between the characters, saying that it was a "basic dramatic unit everyone understands" but rarely used in games. The voice cast included Louis Gossett Jr., Robert Guillaume and Robert Culp.
Physics and design
Valve integrated the Havok physics engine, which simulates real-world physics, to reinforce the player's sense of presence and create new gameplay. To experiment, they created a minigame, Zombie Basketball, in which players used a physics-manipulating gun to throw zombies through hoops. In mid-2000, to test the physics and non-player characters, Valve built a battle between rioting citizens and police.In late 2001, Valve began creating a showreel, hoping to demonstrate it at E3 the next year. For several months, Newell let the team work without his input so he could provide unbiased feedback, and focused on developing Steam, Valve's upcoming digital distribution service. The team presented the showreel to Newell, showcasing physics, environments such as the Borealis, and a dialogue-heavy scene with the scientist character Dr. Kleiner. Newell felt the showreel did not adequately show how the physics would affect gameplay and that the Kleiner scene was overlong. Reflecting on the feedback, Laidlaw concluded that the character drama had to support interactivity and gameplay.
In September 2002, the team completed a second showreel, featuring a buggy race along the City 17 coast, an encounter with headcrabs on a pier, an alien strider attacking the city, and a greatly shortened Kleiner sequence. In October, Newell told the team they would announce Half-Life 2 at E3 2003 and release it by the end of the year. As with the original Half-Life, the team split into "cabals" working on different levels. Designers created levels using placeholder shapes and surfaces, which then were worked on by the artists.
Announcement and delay
Valve announced Half-Life 2 at E3 2003, with demonstrations of the characters, animation and physics. The reaction was positive, and the game won the E3 Game of the Show award. Newell also announced a release date of September 30, 2003, hoping this would motivate the team. They worked long hours to meet the deadline, but by July it was clear they would miss it. Rumors spread of a delay. On September 23, Valve released a statement targeting a release for the holiday season, leading to fan backlash.Newell had been hesitant to announce a delay without a new release date. He said later: "We were paralyzed. We knew we weren't going to make the date we promised, and that was going to be a huge fiasco and really embarrassing. But we didn't have a new date to give people either." The graphics card manufacturer ATI had arranged a promotional event on Alcatraz Island to coincide with the planned release of Half-Life 2. Unable to pull out of the event, Newell gave a prepared speech, demonstrated the Source engine, and left without addressing questions.