For the first time in many years, Half-Life 2 is getting a substantial update,
On Tuesday, well-known Source Engine aficionado Gabe Follower discovered a peculiar interface change to Half-Life 2, which almost certainly exists to make the classic first-person shooter easier to manage on the Steam Deck. It’s not every day that an 18-year-old game gets updates, after all.
Here is how you enable Half-Life 2’s UI update on a desktop PC.
- Install Half-Life 2 (duh)
- Right-click Half-Life 2’s icon on Steam and select “properties”
- Go to the betas tab
- Select “beta updates” from the dropdown menu
- In the general tab, enter “-gamepadui” into the launch options field
Bang, you’re done! Half-life 2 should now open with a brand new UI which you can look at in action below.
Valve updated Half-Life 2 user interface, it is most likely done for Steam Deck pic.twitter.com/IMgqW7sN8k
— Gabe Follower (@gabefollower) January 25, 2022
Bang, you’re done! Half-life 2 should now open with a brand new UI which you can look at in action below.
Valve reportedly isn’t working on another mainline Half-Life game, so this update is all we will get for now. Still, it looks pretty intuitive and very console-like.
Everyone assumes this sneaky update exists to make Half-Life 2 easier to play on the Steam Deck, which makes sense considering the device is coming out very soon. It’s chuckle-worthy that Valve is tweaking such an old game in preparation for new hardware, especially since the company said there’ll be no Steam Deck exclusives.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.
