Every Half-Life Game Is Currently Free on Steam

For the moment, Valve hasn’t yet delayed Half-Life: Alyx. The long-awaited return to the Half-Life universe is coming in virtual reality form in only a few months, and to help get folks ready for a dive back into City 17, Valve has made the entire Half-Life collection—that includes Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2, Half-Life: Episode One and Two—free to all Steam users.

The links Valve provided don’t work well with VICE’s system, so you’ll have to click over to grab ’em. This promotion lasts until the game’s launch, which, again, is hopefully in March!

“Half-Life: Alyx is set before the events of Half-Life 2 and the episodes, but the games share characters and story elements,” said Valve, as part of the announcement. “The Half-Life: Alyx team believes that the best way to enjoy the new game is to play through the old ones, especially Half-Life 2 and the episodes, so we want to make that as easy as possible.”

The way everything is setup is a little funky. If you head to the Steam page for Half-Life, it’s still possible to buy Half-Life. What’s happening here is that Valve’s set up specific links that’ll let you install all four games into your computer, but you won’t actually “own” them.

Still, this is neat. I want to tell myself I’ll find time to dip back into this world before Alyx ships, and the many delays of various games certainly helps my case, but more than anything, hopefully it gives new players a chance to find out why so many of us are so damn excited.

Follow Patrick on Twitter. His email is patrick.klepek@vice.com, and available privately on Signal (224-707-1561).