Play Every Half-Life Game For Free Starting Right Now

The year is 2020. Pigs have not achieved flight, yet somehow, a brand new Half-Life game is in the works. "A new Half-Life?" the skeptics might snarl. "We'll believe it when we see it." You need not look any further than Steam, where it appears the entire Half-Life collection is now free to play while Half-Life: Alyx gets finished.

If you've walked past a Steam sale a time or two in the past decade, there's a pretty good chance you own most of these games already. Half-Life. The Opposing Force and Blue Shift add-ons. Half-Life 2. Half-Life 2 Episode One and Episode Two. There's plenty to play in the series, and there are also tons of mods and enhancements you can download, too.

And it's worth remembering that Half-Life might be up there with some of gaming's biggest franchises in terms of importance. How many people are ready to storm Rare and demand a Conker's Bad Fur Day 2? Has the lack of a third entry in the Dishonored series become a certified meme in the way Half-Life 3 has? We won't have a true trilogy on our hands once Half-Life: Alyx arrives; it's set between the stories of Half-Life and Half-Life 2 and is played in VR. That doesn't mean there's a lack of hype surrounding this third game, though.

If you're getting caught up in a bit of that hype yourself, but you've never experienced Half-Life or Half-Life 2, now's the time. For the low, low price of zero dollars, you'll be able to download the whole series thus far and play to your heart's content — or until April 1, 2020, at least. That should give you plenty of time to experience these classics and catch up on the story.

Then you might have to invest in a beefier PC and a VR headset. Half-Life: Alyx comes to Steam in March 2020.