Valve Lastly Mounted A A long time-Outdated Bug In Half-Life

A brand new replace for Valve’s first recreation, 1998’s beloved first-person shooter Half-Life, has mounted an previous, small, and annoying animation glitch present in one of many recreation’s most memorable ranges. And followers, myself included, are very enthusiastic about it.

The unique Half-Life has loads of memorable moments all through its marketing campaign. However one of the well-known needs to be chapter six, “Blast Pit.” On this degree, gamers are launched to a giant alien tentacle in a still-impressive set piece through which it crashes by way of a window in a missile silo and drags away a helpless researcher. Nevertheless, for a really very long time now, an animation glitch has made this second look wonky and damaged.

Final week, Valve launched a big Twenty fifth-anniversary patch for Half-Life that added in previous minimize content material and new maps, mounted quite a few glitches, and even made the sport verified on Steam Deck. It was an important patch! Nevertheless, even after that massive replace, the Blast Pit animation bug remained. Even after two smaller patches had been put out by Valve to repair some minor points created by the Twenty fifth-anniversary replace, the Blast Pit bug was nonetheless within the recreation. It taunted gamers, myself included, who went again to replay the sport for the a centesimal time. A developer who labored on Half-Life even lately commented on the damaged animation and joked that it wanted to be mounted. And now it lastly has after many, a few years.

On November 22, Valve launched one other small patch for Half-Life designed largely to repair a number of extra issues the massive replace launched. And within the patch notes, I noticed a notice that caught my consideration:

Mounted timing for the sequence the place a tentacle grabs a scientist in Blast Pit.

Might it’s? Had Valve lastly mounted this tiny error that had lingered for many years at this level? I shortly hopped into Half-Life, loaded up Blast Pit, and watched that helpless scientist get grabbed and pulled away. However this time, he was truly related to the tentacle and never floating a number of ft in entrance of it. I may need whispered, “Wow.”

Over on the Half-Life subreddit, gamers are additionally celebrating the mounted animation. “These loopy bastards did it,” one consumer replied. “That little bug irritated me a lot for some motive, so I unironically contemplate Half-Life a greater recreation now that it’s lastly mounted lol,” posted another person.

Whereas I’m completely satisfied Half-Life is getting a lot love from Valve proper now within the type of all these updates and fixes, I’m additionally curious as to why. Certain, it’s the sport’s Twenty fifth anniversary, so it is smart to replace it.

However issues like this make it really feel as if a gaggle of devs, or perhaps even only one Half-Life superfan inside Valve, are on a mission proper now, simply digging into the sport and fixing long-standing bugs. And Valve appears to be okay with it. And what, I’m okay with it, too! I salute whoever is liable for bettering Half-Life all these years later.

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