Crikey, Half-Life 2 just turned 20 years ancient this week, but despite it, or even because of it, it just hit a modern peak in concurrent player counts.
Look, we all know that Half-Life 2 is one of the best games on the market. I haven’t even played it and I know it! It’s just there, but it’s quite ancient and even though it has a lot of fans, it’s not like a huge number of people play it every day. Except now it is, because a major modern update was just released this week that brought a ton of improvements and also compiled Episodes 1 and 2 into the base game. What’s more, a completely modern developer commentary has also been added to the base game, containing behind-the-scenes information from one of the most iconic games in history. And do you know what such an update does? Apparently bring in a whole lot of players.
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As you can see below SteamDBtracking site that lets you see all sorts of stats about different games, Half-Life 2 peaked at 63,636 concurrent players (I love the palindromic number), which is the highest in the game. This was literally hit just 12 minutes ago at the time of writing, and there are only a few less in the game right now.
That’s a ridiculously impressive number for such an ancient game. Such numbers might be expected for online gaming during a quieter period, but such an update seems to have unsettled fans. New players have probably also joined us, because until tomorrow the game will be available for free download on the occasion of its 20th anniversary.
Not only is there a major modern update, but there’s also an entire feature-length documentary that’s worth watching if you’re a long-time fan of Valve and all of its games – it even includes a look at what’s going on in Half-Life 2: Episode 3 Could Have Been (don’t take this as confirmation that it’s finally happening).
