The Half-Life 2 20th Anniversary Update has set a fresh record for the number of concurrent players on Steam.
Valve’s influential shooter reached a peak of 64,222 concurrent players over the weekend after the studio released an enhanced version with fresh features alongside a gameplay reveal document for the canceled Episode 3. It helped that Half-Life 2 also became “free to keep” for today, November 18.
Half-Life 2 was released on November 16, 2004, a year after Steam itself. According to public data, recording the number of simultaneous players in the game does not begin until September 2008 SteamDBso we don’t know how many players played Half-Life 2 when it launched 20 years ago. However, we know that since September 2008, Half-Life 2 has not been as popular on Steam as it is today. The previous record for Half-Life 2 was 16,101 in August 2021, after a community event sparked a resurgence in interest.
The Anniversary Update means Half-Life 2 now includes the complete Episode One and Episode Two expansions along with the base game. They are accessible from the main menu, and after completing each one, you automatically move on to the next expansion.
New developer commentary for the Half-Life 2 base game has also been released, after Valve asked the team to write three and a half hours of fresh behind-the-scenes commentary.
Perhaps most exhilarating is the integrated Steam Workshop support, which allows players to browse, install, and play user-created content for Half-Life 2 without having to leave the game. Meanwhile, bug fixes and fresh graphical options have been introduced that allow players to enhance the visual quality of Half-Life 2 beyond what was allowed in the original version.
All of these updates, the document and its associated headlines, and the “free storage” offer combined to boost interest in all things Half-Life 2 and send thousands of players to City 17 to fight the Combine.
The question is: will Valve finally follow in Half-Life 3’s footsteps?
Wesley is the UK news editor at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
