Half-Life 2 (Windows)/Revisional Differences

This is a sub-page of Half-Life 2 (Windows).

To do: Split pages into versions Document anything different between the initial release of HL2 and its subsequent patches. The Orange Box and SteamPipe updates in particular changed a lot of things. Document all changes within the 20th Anniversary update. A full list of changes can be found here.

Most of the below changes are as a result of Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One moving to the Source 2009 engine from the 2004 and 2006 engine respectively. Half-Life 2: Episode Two was also updated to Source 2009 on this date, but it came with all the below changes already on Source 2007. This occurred on May 26, 2010, the same date the Mac OSX ports released, thereby dubbing it the "Mac Update."

Mac Update Changes

Vortigaunts

With the release of The Orange Box, Valve updated the model and textures for the Vortigaunts in Episode Two. This came to Half-Life 2 with the Mac Update.

2004/Release	HL2 2010/The Orange Box

2004/Release	HL2 2010/The Orange Box

Combine Soldiers

With the Mac Update, Combine Soldiers received a unique skin for the shotgun-wielding soldiers from Episode Two. However, the Nova Prospekt guards wielding shotguns only have different eye textures.

2004/Release	HL2 2010/The Orange Box

2004/Release	HL2 2010/The Orange Box

AR2 Alt-Fire

The design for the AR2/Pulse Rifle alt-fire ammo was changed to a Combine-style metal case. Interestingly, the new model was supposed to have a small energy ball particle effect attached to the "empty" bit, however, it is commented out in the model's .qc file. A mod exists to restore this effect, created by Cvoxalury.

2004/Release	HL2 2010/The Orange Box

Fire Effects

The fire particle effects were changed in the Mac Update. Speaking of particles, this update also changed the way particles worked, going from hard-coded particles to using .pcf files.

2004/Release	HL2 2010/The Orange Box

Ragdoll Physics

The difference in ragdoll physics between the 2004 version and the current version of Half-Life 2 is that ragdolls in the 2004 release react more realistically when killed by weapons. But ragdolls in the current version react differently, giving them a strange falling effect. It is unknown when the change was made, but there is a theory that the change was made between The Orange Box version or the SteamPipe version. However, a way has been found to fix this change by copying the old version of the model's .phy file to the newer one, restoring the 2004 effect.

On Youtube, there are comparison videos of ragdoll physics between 2004 build and latest build.

Friends Menu

At this time, the Steam overlay didn't exist and you had to use a Friends menu to see your friends. When the Steam overlay was added in 2009, all Source Engine games were updated to remove the Friends menu.

The Friends menu doesn't function anymore as the old Valve servers are offline.

20th Anniversary Update

On 15 November 2024, Valve released a sizeable update to Half-Life 2 in order to commemorate its 20th anniversary, in a similar vein to Half-Life, with a two-hour long documentary by Secret Tape also included. With it, Lost Coast, Episode One, Episode Two and their respective Steam achievements are now included with the base game, as well as the addition of Steam Workshop, many bug fixes and even updates to the Hammer editor.

Main Menu

The main menu (and all of its panels) has been updated to scale properly with higher resolutions, replacing all system fonts with the "DIN" font, have buttons for both Episodes, as well as an "Extras" button that allows the player to play user-downloaded Steam Workshop maps and Lost Coast. Typing developer 1 in the console also allows the player to upload their own add-ons through the in-game Workshop uploader.

Initial Release	20th Anniversary Update

Chapter Selection

The chapter selection panel was updated to include a toggle for developer commentary, added with this update to Half-Life 2. This change is also carried over to the newly-merged games.

Initial Release	20th Anniversary Update

Options

The "Difficulty" tab has been renamed to "Gameplay", the non-fuctional "Use 'bloom' effect when available" setting has been removed and a "Gamepad" settings menu was added.

Maps

Many, many long-standing map bugs have been fixed and all maps now have proper HDR (High Dynamic Range) support, with the few maps that went into "fullbright" lighting while in LDR (Low Dynamic Range) mode also being fixed.