Skip to main content

Valve fixes ‘Half-Life’ bugs nearly 19 years after its release

Next year will be the 20th anniversary of Valve’s original breakout hit, Half-Life and yet the company is still releasing updates for it. This latest one addresses a number of longstanding bugs that could cause crashes for multiplayer and single player gamers, as well as a possible security issue with modified save files.

Although Valve is no doubt as tired as many gamers are with the Half-Life 3 jokes which are still bandied around the internet, their continuing existence goes to show how beloved the original series of games was and still is today. While we may never have a completion to Gordon Freeman and friends’ stories, Valve is at least keen on keeping its existing games functioning as best it can.

Recommended Videos

This latest patch is focused on crash fixes and addresses four distinct ones. One occurred when entering malformed strings into the game console, and another happened when loading a “specially crafted malformed BSP file.” While those are rather specific and it is perhaps understandable why they weren’t discovered before now, another crash that Valve has now fixed was triggered by quickly swapping between consumable weapons.

Custom decals could also cause a crash we’re told, but not anymore.

One potentially more troubling fix that Valve made in this update was in shoring up a hole that made it possible for malformed save files to allow arbitrary content to be written into the game folder. While it’s unlikely that someone would use a near-19-year-old game as an attack vector, stranger things have happened and Valve has taken steps to make sure it won’t be possible with Half-Life.

This is not the only game affected by this update though. This patch has also been applied to a number of other classic Valve games of that era, including Half-Life: Blue Shift and Half-Life: Opposing Force.

The fan response to this update has been pretty positive and while there are the usual jokes about Half-Life 3, with some suggesting Valve should get on with making new games, most seem to be pleased that Valve is giving a little bit of love to its older games so long after their release.

Valve isn’t the only firm that updates old games, though. Blizzard is perhaps the best example of long-term support for its back catalog.

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…
Valve devs explain why Half-Life 2: Episode 3 never happened
Gordon Freeman and Alyx standing together and looking at the camera.

One of the more well-known jokes among video game fans is that Valve doesn't know how to count to the number three. There will likely never be a Half-Life 3, and the Half-Life 2 episodes stopped at two. But thanks to a new documentary, we have a reason why we never got Half-Life 2: Episode 3.

In the Half-Life 2: 20th Anniversary Documentary, posted on YouTube last week, former and current Valve developers break down the history of the now classic shooter. The philosophy behind the episodes, which followed the main game, was to "do more with less." So Episode 1 had Alyx follow you throughout the game as an active companion, and players encountered the Hunters for the first time in Episode 2.

Read more
Life-sim game inZOI finally gets a release date, but it’s a delay to 2025
A woman built in the Inzoi character creator. She has short brown hair and big eyes looking off to the left.

The developers behind inZOI announced a 2025 early access release date on Thursday despite assurances that the hyper-realistic life sim would still launch sometime this year.

Game producer and director Hyungjun “Kjun” Kim posted an open letter to the community on the inZOI Discord saying that the game will be coming out on March 28, 2025, instead of in late 2024 so that the developers can give the game "the best possible start."

Read more
Project Borealis might be the closest we get to Half-Life 3
Gordon Freeman and Alyx standing together and looking at the camera.

Half-Life 2 changed the world of gaming forever 20 years ago — and also sealed Half-Life 3 as perhaps the most anticipated sequel of all time. Since then, Valve has thoroughly enjoyed teasing its fans, but there has been nothing official about Half-Life 3. Fans have taken it upon themselves to create the sequel they apparently aren't going to get in the form of Project Borealis, and now it finally has a Steam page.

Project Borealis isn't new. It was originally intended to be an interpretation of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 — a game that was never released — but the developers went radio silent for a while. A few months back, a new trailer dropped that reignited discussion about the game. Now it finally has a Steam page, and that means release is closer than ever before.

Read more