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= Half-Life (video game) =
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Introduction
======================================================================
'Half-Life' is a 1998 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by
Valve Corporation and published by Sierra Studios for Windows. It was
Valve's debut product and the first game in the 'Half-Life' series.
The player assumes the role of Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist
who must escape from the Black Mesa Research Facility after it is
overrun by aliens following a disastrous scientific experiment. Its
gameplay consists of diverse combat, exploration and puzzles.
Valve was disappointed with the lack of innovation in the FPS genre
and aimed to create an immersive world rather than a "shooting
gallery." The game runs on the engine GoldSrc, a heavily modified
version of the 'Quake' engine, licensed from id Software. The science
fiction novelist Marc Laidlaw was hired to craft the plot and assist
with design. Unlike other games at the time, the player has almost
uninterrupted control of the player character; the story is mostly
conveyed through scripted sequences rather than cutscenes.
'Half-Life' received acclaim for its graphics, gameplay and narrative
and won more than 50 PC "Game of the Year" awards. It is considered
one of the most influential FPS games and one of the greatest video
games of all time. By 2008, it had sold more than nine million copies.
It was ported to the PlayStation 2 in 2001, along with the multiplayer
expansion 'Decay', and to OS X and Linux in 2013. Valve ported
'Half-Life' to its game engine, Source, as 'Half-Life: Source' in
2004. In 2020, 'Black Mesa' was released, an unofficial fan-made
remake of 'Half-Life' developed by Crowbar Collective using the Source
engine.
'Half-Life' inspired numerous fan-made mods, some of which became
standalone games, such as 'Counter-Strike' (2000), 'Day of Defeat'
(2003), and 'Sven Co-op' (1999). It was followed by the expansion
packs 'Opposing Force' (1999) and 'Blue Shift' (2001), developed by
Gearbox Software, and the sequels 'Half-Life 2' (2004), 'Episode One'
(2006), 'Episode Two' (2007) and 'Half-Life: Alyx' (2020).
Gameplay
======================================================================
'Half-Life' is a first-person shooter (FPS) in which the player
combines firearm combat, exploration, environmental interaction, and
puzzle solving to progress through the game. Unlike many contemporary
FPS games, which frequently used cut-scenes to present their
narratives, 'Half-Life' primarily uses scripted events that occur
within the game world, allowing the player to remain in control of
Gordon Freeman and observe events from his first-person perspective.
Freeman never speaks or appears directly on screen, reinforcing the
design in which the player experiences the events through his eyes.
Rather than being divided into conventional levels, the game is
organized into chapters whose titles briefly appear as the player
progresses. The environments are connected by a largely continuous
progression, with only short loading pauses separating individual
maps; teleportation sequences provide an exception to this structure.
Contemporary coverage emphasized this approach as a departure from the
more conventional level-based structure of contemporary shooters, with
the game presenting Black Mesa as a connected environment rather than
a succession of unrelated stages.
Combat is a major component of the gameplay, but the player is
encouraged to combine weapons with movement, positioning, and
environmental awareness rather than relying exclusively on firepower.
The arsenal includes conventional firearms, explosives, melee weapons,
and alien technology, with different weapons serving different
tactical purposes. Ammunition and other resources are generally placed
in locations appropriate to the environment rather than appearing as
arbitrary pickups; contemporary reviewers noted that weapons,
ammunition, and health supplies were integrated into the surrounding
world to reinforce the game's sense of realism. The game frequently
combines combat with environmental puzzles. These challenges can
involve operating machinery, navigating conveyor systems, manipulating
movable objects, finding alternative routes, or using environmental
hazards against enemies. For example, the player can manipulate valves
to release dangerous steam, while boxes and other objects can be
arranged to create paths to otherwise inaccessible areas. These
puzzles are generally presented as problems within the environment
rather than as explicitly marked challenges, requiring the player to
observe the surroundings and determine an appropriate solution.
Enemy encounters are similarly integrated into the environment. The
player encounters a variety of alien organisms, including headcrabs,
bullsquids, Vortigaunts, and headcrab zombies, as well as human
opponents such as military soldiers and Black Ops assassins. Human
enemies were noted for their use of coordinated behavior and tactical
responses, while different alien species possess distinct methods of
attacking the player. Valve demonstrated AI features such as fear and
group behavior during the game's development, contributing to
encounters in which enemies could react to the player's actions rather
than simply attacking from predetermined positions.
Non-player characters also play an active role in progression.
Security guards can accompany Freeman during combat and can be used to
access certain areas, while scientists provide information and help
establish the circumstances surrounding the disaster at Black Mesa.
Their presence also contributes to the game's environmental
storytelling, as conversations and scripted interactions occur
directly within the playable environment instead of being presented
through conventional cinematics.
Scripted sequences are used throughout the game to introduce
characters, enemies, locations, and major events without removing
control from the player. Contemporary reviewers highlighted this
approach as one of the game's principal innovations, noting that
important events could unfold naturally while the player remained in
the first-person viewpoint. These sequences can also function as
gameplay encounters: enemies may emerge during scripted events, areas
may change while the player is moving through them, and environmental
hazards can alter the player's immediate objectives. There are
relatively few conventional boss battles. Instead, several powerful
creatures function as major encounters in which the player is expected
to exploit the environment rather than simply overwhelm the enemy with
weapons. This design is particularly evident in encounters involving
large alien organisms, where understanding the surrounding machinery
or terrain can be more important than dealing direct damage.
Late in the game, Freeman obtains a "long jump module" for the HEV
suit, allowing him to increase the horizontal distance and speed of
his jumps by crouching before jumping. The ability becomes
particularly important in the Xen chapters, which introduce
platforming-oriented challenges and low-gravity environments that
require more precise movement. The Xen sections were subsequently
criticized by some reviewers for their emphasis on jumping puzzles and
less precise movement compared with the earlier portions of the game.
The game also includes online multiplayer in individual and team-based
deathmatch modes. Multiplayer uses the game's weapons and environments
for competitive matches, providing an alternative to the single-player
campaign's scripted progression. Contemporary coverage praised the
multiplayer's weapon balance and level design, although its pace
differed from faster contemporary shooters such as 'Quake'.
The combination of combat, puzzles, environmental interaction, and
continuous scripted storytelling contributed to the game's reputation
for immersion and interactivity. Contemporary reviewers repeatedly
identified these qualities as major departures from the conventions of
earlier first-person shooters, with 'GameSpot' describing the game as
a major step forward for the genre and other reviewers emphasizing its
immersive presentation.
Plot
======================================================================
At the underground Black Mesa Research Facility, the theoretical
physicist Gordon Freeman participates in an experiment on a crystal of
unknown origin. This triggers a "resonance cascade", which greatly
damages the facility and teleports in hostile alien creatures. Eli
Vance tells Freeman to get to the surface and find help. After going
through several layers of Black Mesa, Freeman discovers that United
States Marines and black operators have been dispatched to the
facility to terminate the aliens but also to cover up the incident by
eliminating all the remaining Black Mesa personnel. A scientist
instructs him to make his way to the Lambda Complex to stop the alien
invasion.
Freeman then discovers a monster called the Tentacle, and kills the
giant creature using a rocket engine test facility that incinerates
it, and uses an underground monorail to reach a rocket silo. He
launches a satellite to help the Lambda team, but is captured by
vengeful Marines and left for dead in a trash compactor. Escaping
through a waste treatment complex, Freeman travels through a part of
Black Mesa filled with alien specimens, collected long before the
resonance cascade.
Overpowered by the aliens, the Marines withdraw and began to launch
air strikes. Freeman crosses the facility's surface to reach the
Lambda Complex, where he discovers secret teleportation technology.
There, scientists inform him that a powerful alien creature is
preventing them from closing the portal. They teleport him to the
alien dimension Xen to kill it. There, Freeman encounters dead
scientists who teleported to Xen before him. He kills a large alien,
the Gonarch, and finds a factory that manufactures alien soldiers.
Finally, he enters the Nihilanth's lair and kills it. Freeman is
detained by the G-Man, a mysterious agent who claims his "employers"
wish to hire Freeman. If he accepts, Freeman is placed into stasis; if
not, he is teleported to his death.
Development
======================================================================
Valve was founded in Kirkland, Washington in 1996 by the former
Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. For their first
product, Valve settled on a concept for a horror first-person shooter
(FPS) game. They did not want to build their own game engine, as this
would have created too much work for a small team and Newell planned
to innovate in different areas. Instead, Valve licensed the 'Quake'
engine and the 'Quake II' engine from id Software and combined them
with their own code. Newell estimated that around 75% of the final
engine code was by Valve. As the project expanded, Valve cancelled
development of a fantasy role-playing game, 'Prospero', and the
'Prospero' team joined the 'Half-Life' project.
'Half-Life' was inspired by the FPS games 'Doom' (1993) and 'Quake'
(1996), Stephen King's 1980 novella 'The Mist', and a 1963 episode of
'The Outer Limits' titled "The Borderland". According to the designer
Harry Teasley, 'Doom' was a major influence and the team wanted
'Half-Life' to "scare you like 'Doom' did". The project had the
working title 'Quiver', after the Arrowhead military base from 'The
Mist'. The name 'Half-Life' was chosen because it was evocative of the
theme, not clichéd, and had a corresponding visual symbol: the Greek
letter λ (lower-case lambda), which represents the 'decay constant' in
the half-life equation. According to the designer Brett Johnson, the
level design was inspired by environments in the manga series 'Akira'.
Newell said that 'Half-Life' was influenced by the immersive
first-person experience of 'Ultima Underworld', the horror of
'Resident Evil 2', and the game design of 'Super Mario 64'.
Valve struggled to find a publisher, as many believed 'Half-Life' was
too ambitious for a first-time developer. Sierra On-Line signed Valve
for a one-game deal as it was interested in making a 3D action game,
especially one based on the 'Quake' engine. Sierra gave Valve an
advance of around $1 million in exchange for 30% of the revenue and
100% of the intellectual property; the rest of development was funded
by Newell and Harrington. Valve first showed 'Half-Life' in early
1997; it was a success at E3 that year, where Valve demonstrated the
animation and artificial intelligence. Novel features of the
artificial intelligence included fear and pack behavior.
Valve aimed for a November 1997 release to compete with 'Quake II'. By
September 1997, the team found that, while they had built some
innovative aspects in weapons, enemies, and level design, the game was
not fun and there was little design cohesion. Playtesting produced
"lukewarm" responses. Sierra would not agree to extra funding, so
Newell took out a loan to fund additional development to rework the
game and delay its release date.
Valve took a novel approach of assigning a small team to build a
prototype level containing every element in the game and then spent a
month iterating on the level. When the rest of the team played the
level, which the designer Ken Birdwell described as "'Die Hard' meets
'Evil Dead'", they agreed to use it as a baseline. The team developed
three theories about what made the level fun. First, it had several
interesting things happen in it, all triggered by the player rather
than a timer so that the player would set the pace of the level.
Second, the level responded to any player action, even for something
as simple as adding graphic decals to wall textures to show a bullet
impact. Finally, the level warned the player of imminent danger to
allow them to avoid it, rather than killing the player with no
warning.
To move forward with this unified design, Valve sought a game designer
but found no one suitable. Instead, Valve created the "cabal",
initially a group of six individuals from across all departments that
worked primarily for six months straight in six-hour meetings four
days a week. The cabal was responsible for all elements of design,
including level layouts, key events, enemy designs, narrative, and the
introduction of gameplay elements relative to the story. The
collaboration proved successful, and once the cabal had come to
decisions on types of gameplay elements that would be needed,
mini-cabals from other departments most affected by the choice were
formed to implement these elements. Membership in the main cabal
rotated since the required commitment created burnout.
The cabal produced a 200-page design document detailing nearly every
aspect of the game. They also produced a 30-page document for the
narrative, and hired the science fiction novelist Marc Laidlaw to help
manage the script. Laidlaw said his contribution was to add "old
storytelling tricks" to the team's ambitious designs: "I was in awe of
[the team]. It felt to me like I was just borrowing from old standards
while they were the ones doing something truly new." Rather than
dictate narrative elements "from some kind of ivory tower of authorial
inspiration", he worked with the team to improvise ideas, and was
inspired by their experiments. For example, he conceived the opening
train ride after an engineer implemented train code for another
concept.
Valve initially planned to use traditional cutscenes, but switched to
a continuous first-person perspective for lack of time. Laidlaw said
they discovered unexpected advantages in this approach, as it created
a sense of immersion and enforced a sense of loneliness in a
frightening environment. Laidlaw felt that non-player characters were
unnecessary to guide players if the design had sufficiently strong
"visual grammar", and that this allowed the characters to "feel like
characters instead of signposts". An early version of 'Half-Life'
began immediately after the disaster, with the environments already
wrecked. Laidlaw worked with Johnson to create versions of the lab
environment before the disaster to help set the story. He said: "These
were all economical ways of doing storytelling with the
architecture--which was my whole obsession. The narrative had to be
baked into the corridors."
Within a month of the cabal's formation, the other team members
started detailed game development, and within another month began
playtesting through Sierra. The cabal was intimately involved with
playtesting, monitoring the player but otherwise not interacting. They
noted any confusion or inability to solve a game's puzzles and made
them into action items to be fixed on the next iteration. Later, with
most of the main adjustments made, the team included means to
benchmark players' actions. They then collected and interpreted
statistically to fine-tune levels further. Between the cabal and
playtesting, Valve identified and removed parts that proved
unenjoyable. Birdwell said that while there were struggles at first,
the cabal approach was critical for 'Half-Life's' success, and was
reused for 'Team Fortress 2' from the start.
Much of the detail of 'Half-Life' development has been lost. According
to Valve employee Erik Johnson, two or three months before release,
their Visual SourceSafe source control system "exploded". Logs of
technical changes from before the final month of development were
lost, and code had to be recovered from individual computers. The
revised version of 'Half-Life' shown at E3 1998 received the Game
Critics Awards for "Best PC Game" and "Best Action Game".
Release
======================================================================
To promote 'Half-Life', Valve's chief marketing officer, Monica
Harrington, promoted Valve's reputation in the industry, with
conference talks about their advances in game development, leading to
coverage in the 'Wall Street Journal'. 'Half-Life' was released on
November 19, 1998. When Sierra told Valve it was not planning to
promote it beyond launch, Harrington threatened that Valve would "walk
away from our agreement and tell the industry that had fallen in love
with Valve how screwed up Sierra really was". In response, Sierra
reissued 'Half-Life' in a "Game of the Year" edition, boosting sales.
In 2001, after renegotiating with Sierra, Valve gained the 'Half-Life'
intellectual property and online distribution rights for its games.
Valve released two 'Half-Life' demos. The first, 'Half-Life: Day One',
contained the first fifth of the game and was distributed with certain
graphic cards. The second, 'Half-Life: Uplink', was released on
February 12, 1999, and featured original content. A short film based
on 'Half-Life,' also titled 'Half-Life: Uplink', was developed by
Cruise Control, a British marketing agency, and released on February
11. The protagonist is a journalist who infiltrates the Black Mesa
Research Facility, trying to discover what has happened there.
'Half-Life' was censored in Germany to comply with the Federal
Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons, which regulates
depictions of violence against humans. Valve replaced the human
characters with robots, spilling oil and gears instead of blood and
body parts when killed, among other changes. In 2017, 'Half-Life' was
removed from the German censorship list. To acknowledge this, Valve
released 'Half-Life Uncensored', a free downloadable content pack,
that reverts the censorship.
Other versions
================
Valve canceled a port of 'Half-Life' for MacOS, developed by
Logicware, in 2000. Newell cited several shortcomings such as the lack
of an auto-updater and the lack of 'Team Fortress Classic', and in
general was worried that Mac players would be "second-class customers"
due to Valve being unable to justify ongoing updates to the Mac port.
Rebecca Heineman, the co-founder of Logicware, said that the main
reason that Valve canceled the Mac port was that Apple had angered
Valve by misrepresenting sales projections (by an order of magnitude).
She said the port was complete and three weeks from release when it
was canceled due to preorder numbers being much lower than Valve
expected. Valve released ports for OS X and Linux in 2013.
Captivation Digital Laboratories and Gearbox Software developed a port
of 'Half-Life' for the Dreamcast, with new character models and
textures and an exclusive expansion, 'Blue Shift'. Following the
cancellations of several third-party games in the wake of Sega's
decision to discontinue the Dreamcast in March 2001, Sierra cancelled
the port weeks before its scheduled release in June, citing "changing
marketing conditions". 'Blue Shift' was ported to Windows. The
Dreamcast port became the basis of the 'Half-Life' port for
PlayStation 2, released in late 2001. This version added competitive
play and a co-op expansion, 'Half-Life: Decay.'
In 2004, Valve released 'Half-Life: Source', a version of 'Half-Life'
ported to their new game engine, Source. It adds ragdoll physics,
advanced water effects, and 5.1 surround sound. At launch, it received
mediocre reviews for its lack of significant gameplay and visual
enhancements, although 'IGN' still recommended it. Retrospective
reception has been more negative, owing to the game's instability and
frequent glitches. The deathmatch mode was ported to Source separately
in 2006 as 'Half-Life Deathmatch: Source'. Following the release of
the 'Half-Life' 25th anniversary update in 2023, 'Half-Life: Source'
was delisted from Steam and does not appear in its search results, it
is now bundled for free with 'Half-Life Deathmatch: Source', which
remains available. 'Black Mesa', a third-party remake of 'Half-Life'
developed by Crowbar Collective on the Source engine, was published as
a free mod in September 2012 and later approved by Valve for a
commercial standalone release.
25th anniversary update
=========================
In November 2023, for the 25th anniversary of 'Half-Life', Valve
updated the Steam version to revert content to its original 1998
state, fix long-standing bugs, and add content including the
'Half-Life: Uplink' demo, four new multiplayer maps, Steam Deck
support, rendering improvements, and support for 4K resolution
monitors. Valve also released an hour-long documentary on the creation
of 'Half-Life', featuring commentary from the original developers,
designers and artists. Two days after the release, 'Half-Life' reached
33,471 concurrent players on Steam, its highest-ever number.
Mods
======================================================================
'Half-Life' received support from independent game developers,
supported and encouraged by Valve. With the game, Valve included
Worldcraft, the level design tool used during development, and a
software development kit, enabling developers to create mods. Both
tools were updated with the release of the patch 1.1.0.0. Supporting
tools (including texture editors, model editors, and level editors
such as the multiple engine editor QuArK) were either created or
updated to work with 'Half-Life'.
The 'Half-Life' software development kit was the development base for
many mods, including the Valve-developed 'Team Fortress Classic' and
'Deathmatch Classic' (a remake of 'Quake's' multiplayer deathmatch
mode in the GoldSrc engine). Other mods such as 'Counter-Strike' and
'Day of Defeat' ('DOD') began as the work of independent developers
who later received aid from Valve. Other multiplayer mods include
'Firearms', 'Natural Selection' and 'Sven Co-op'. Single-player mods
include 'USS Darkstar' (1999, a futuristic action-adventure on board a
zoological research spaceship) and 'They Hunger' (2000-2001, a
survival horror total conversion trilogy involving zombies).Coverage
of modifications of 'Half-Life' include:
* For 'Firearms', see
* For 'Natural Selection', see
* For 'Sven Co-op', see
* For 'USS Darkstar', see
* For 'They Hunger', see To promote the 2003 film 'Underworld', Sony
Pictures commissioned video game developer Black Widow Games to
develop a promotional tie-in mod titled 'Underworld: Bloodline'. The
mod was available on Sony Pictures' official website until the end of
2007 and remains the only officially licensed Half-Life mod tied to a
Hollywood film.
Some 'Half-Life' modifications received retail releases.
'Counter-Strike' was the most successful, having been released in six
different editions: as a standalone product (2000), as part of the
'Platinum Pack' (2000), as an Xbox version (2003), and as a
single-player spin-off, 'Counter-Strike: Condition Zero' (2004), as
well as in two versions using the Source engine. 'Team Fortress
Classic', 'Day of Defeat', 'Gunman Chronicles' (2000, a futuristic
Western movie-style total conversion with emphasis on its
single-player mode) and 'Sven Co-op' were also released as standalone
products. 'Half-Life' is also the subject of the YouTube improv
roleplaying series 'Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware' and
'Freeman's Mind'.
In 2003, Valve's network was infiltrated by hackers. Among the stolen
files was the unreleased 'Half-Life' mod 'Half-Life: Threewave', a
canceled remake of the 'Quake' mod 'Threewave CTF'. The files were
found by fans on a Vietnamese FTP server in February 2016 and
unofficially distributed that September.
Critical reception
====================
On the review aggregation website Metacritic, 'Half-Life' has a score
of 96 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim". 'Computer Gaming
World's' Jeff Green said it was "not just one of the best games of the
year. It's one of the best games of any year, an instant classic that
is miles better than any of its immediate competition, and--in its
single-player form--is the best shooter since the original 'Doom.'"
'Next Generation' wrote: "It is fast paced, it is dramatic, and it
brings the very idea of adventure on a PC out of the dark ages and
into a 3D world. All that and not a single Orc in sight." 'IGN'
described it as "a tour de force in game design, the definitive single
player game in a first-person shooter". 'GameSpot' said it was the
"closest thing to a revolutionary step the genre has ever taken".
Several reviewers cited the level of immersion and interactivity as
revolutionary. 'AllGame' said, "It isn't everyday that you come across
a game that totally revolutionizes an entire genre, but Half-Life has
done just that." 'Hot Games' commented on the realism, and how the
environment "all adds up to a totally immersive gaming experience that
makes everything else look quite shoddy in comparison". 'Gamers Depot'
wrote that it was the most immersive game they had played.
The final portion of the game, taking place in the alien world of Xen,
was generally considered the weakest. Besides introducing a wholly new
and alien setting, it also featured a number of low-gravity jumping
puzzles. The GoldSrc engine did not provide as much precise control
for the player during jumping, making these jumps difficult and often
with Freeman falling into a void and the player restarting the game.
'Wired' Julie Muncy called the Xen sequence "an abbreviated,
unpleasant stop on an alien world with bad platforming and a boss
fight against what appeared, by all accounts, to be a giant floating
infant". 'The Electric Playground' said that 'Half-Life' was an
"immersive and engaging entertainment experience" in its first half
and that it "peaked too soon".
During the AIAS' 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards,
'Half-Life' was awarded "Computer Entertainment Title of the Year" and
"PC Action Game of the Year"; it also received nominations for "Game
of the Year" and outstanding achievement in "Art/Graphics", "Character
or Story Development", "Interactive Design", and "Software
Engineering".
Jeff Lundrigan reviewed the PlayStation 2 version for 'Next
Generation', rating it three out of five, and wrote that "it may be
getting old, but there's still a surprising amount of life in
'Half-Life'". The PlayStation 2 version was a nominee for 'The
Electric Playground's' 2001 Blister Awards for "Best Console Shooter
Game", but lost to 'Halo: Combat Evolved' for Xbox.
In 1999, 2001, and 2005, 'PC Gamer' named 'Half-Life' the best PC game
of all time. In 2004, 'GameSpy' readers voted 'Half-Life' the best
game of all time. 'Gamasutra' gave it their Quantum Leap Award in the
FPS category in 2006. 'GameSpot' inducted 'Half-Life' into their
Greatest Games of All Time list in May 2007. In 2007, 'IGN' described
'Half-Life' as one of the most influential video games, and in 2013
wrote that the history of the FPS genre "breaks down pretty cleanly
into pre-'Half-Life' and post-'Half-Life' eras". In 2021, the
'Guardian' ranked 'Half-Life' the third-greatest game of the 1990s,
writing that it "helped write the rulebook for how games tell their
stories without resorting to aping the conventions of film".
Sales
=======
According to Newell, 'Half-Life' was budgeted with the expectation of
lifetime sales of around 180,000 copies. However, it was a surprise
hit. In the United States, it debuted at #8 on PC Data's weekly PC
game sales chart for the November 15-21 period, with an average retail
price (ARP) of $49. It rose to sixth place the following week, before
dropping to position 10 for the week ending December 5. During the
December 6-12 period, the game climbed back to sixth place; by this
time, its ARP had dropped to $36. It placed between sixth and eighth
on PC Data's weekly charts through the end of December, and its ARP
rose back to $45 by the week ending January 2. PC Data declared
'Half-Life' November's sixth-best-selling PC game in the United
States, a position it held for the month of December. While its U.S.
sales were below 100,000 copies by November 30, it sold 212,173 copies
and earned revenues of $8.6 million in the United States by the end of
1998.
In January 1999, 'Half-Life' debuted at #3 on Chart-Track's PC game
sales rankings for the United Kingdom, and remained in PC Data's
weekly top 10 for the entire month, peaking at #4. By January 19,
after two full months of availability, global sales of 'Half-Life'
surpassed 500,000 units. In the United States, it was the
fifth-best-selling PC game for the month of January. On PC Data's
weekly charts, it rose to #2 from February 7-20, with an ARP of $35.
Holding a position in the weekly top 10 for the rest of February, it
climbed to fourth for the month. The game remained in PC Data's weekly
top 10 until the week of March 21 and dropped to position 11 for March
as a whole. In the United Kingdom, it placed second in
February--behind the debut of 'Baldur's Gate'--and fifth in March. In
April, it claimed #3 on Chart-Track's rankings and dropped to #16 on
those of PC Data. On April 23, Sierra announced that global sales of
'Half-Life' had reached almost 1 million copies.
After maintaining the 16th place for May in the U.S., 'Half-Life'
exited PC Data's monthly top 20 in June. 'Half-Life' became the
fifth-best-selling PC game of the first half of 1999 in the U.S. Its
domestic sales during 1999 reached 290,000 copies by the end of
September. During 1999, it was the fifth-best-selling PC game in the
U.S., with sales of 445,123 copies. These sales brought in revenues of
$16.6 million, the sixth-highest gross that year for a PC game in the
U.S. The following year, it was the 16th-best-selling PC game in the
U.S., selling another 286,593 copies and earning $8.98 million.
'Half-Life' dominated FPS sales of the period. Robert M. Atkins, the
design lead of the FPS 'Sin', released shortly before 'Half-Life',
said: "'Half-Life' just crushed the market. It completely changed the
first-person shooter narratives."
The PlayStation 2 version received a "Silver" sales award from the
Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA),
indicating sales of 100,000 copies in the UK 'Half-Life's' global
sales reached 2.5 million copies by July 2001. 'Edge' noted in 2003
that "a significant number of the 7.5m copies of the PC version were
bought because the game offered such potential for community-driven
expansion". As of November 16, 2004, eight million copies had been
sold, and by 2008, 9.3 million copies had been sold at retail.
'Guinness World Records' awarded 'Half-Life' the world record for
Best-Selling First-Person Shooter of All Time (PC) in 2008.
Expansions and sequels
======================================================================
'Half-Life' was followed by an expansion pack, 'Opposing Force', on
November 1, 1999, developed by Gearbox Software. Players control
Hazardous Environment Combat Unit (HECU) Corporal Adrian Shephard, who
fights a new group of aliens, Race X, and Black Ops units after being
split from his team. Gearbox developed a second expansion pack, 'Blue
Shift', in which players control Barney Calhoun, a security guard at
Black Mesa, as he attempts to escape the facility. It was developed as
a bonus campaign for the Dreamcast port of 'Half-Life,' but was
released for Windows on June 12, 2001, after the port was canceled.
Gearbox created a cooperative multiplayer expansion pack, 'Decay,'
exclusively for the PlayStation 2 port of 'Half-Life' which is played
through the perspectives of Gina Cross and Colette Green, two Black
Mesa scientists.
'Half-Life 2' was released in 2004. The player controls Freeman 20
years after the Black Mesa incident in the dystopian City 17, where he
joins a rebellion against an alien regime. It was followed by the
episodic sequels 'Half-Life 2: Episode One' (2006) and 'Half-Life 2:
Episode Two' (2007). After cancelling several other 'Half-Life'
projects, Valve released 'Half-Life: Alyx' in 2020.
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