Free on the occasion of the 20th anniversary, Half-Life 2 broke the viewership record on Steam. More than 60,000 fans or curious gathered to (re)discover the cult FPS.
Half-Life 2 celebrated its 20th anniversary on November 16, 2024. And we can say that this anniversary was celebrated by both Valve and the Steam community, as it should be. The American publisher has indeed planned a major update for the occasion, integrating two expansions (Episode One and Episode Two), behind-the-scenes audio commentary and fixing certain bugs.
You had to go back to November 17, 2023 to see the patch track Half-Life 2and it just cleaned up a few files. Here, Valve has been much more ambitious, while a collective of enthusiasts backed by Nvidia is working on RTX version. In any case, the public responded: according to statistics provided by SteamDB, Half-Life 2 broke the audience record when 64,085 players connected simultaneously.
Half-Life 2 explodes its record on Steam
Besides, a twentysomething passed by Half-Life 2milestone that inevitably attracts, Valve decided on a smart commercial strategy: to temporarily release its FPS (at the time of writing, it is still free, until November 18 at 19:00 French time). Half-Life 2 they obviously used this opportunity to meet fans and curious people. Especially since it benefits from the ever-increasing number of Steam users around the world (compared to when it was launched).
Before this peak, more than 60,000 people, Half-Life 2 he settled for a few thousand stubborn ones. There has been some increase in attendance, for example in August 2021 due to a community event (over 16,000 people) or in January 2020 due to a free week (over 6,000 people). But not enough to break the record, as a title that has reference status in its genre just did.
This success could give Valve ideas, will probably really break the internet by making it official Half-life 3 (sea snake). The company could also resume development Half-Life 2: Episode 3abandoned in favor of Left 4 Dead. ” It was a really tight start timing and it required everyone’s effort. It was worth it I guess Left 4 Dead was excellent. But it took so long, and it’s both tragic and comical to think about it, that by the time we wanted to go back to Episode 3, it was too late. We needed a new engine to continue the Half-Life saga. Today, when I look back, it was not the right decision. We were able to go back and work for two years on Episode 3 ยป, confides developer David Speyre 20th anniversary documentary games.