Half-Life (series)

Half-Life
The series' logo, an orange lambda, is a prominent symbol throughout the series.
Developer(s)	Valve Gearbox Software (1999–2001)
Publisher(s)	Sierra On-Line (1998–2003) Valve (2004–present)
Platform(s)	Windows macOS Linux Xbox Xbox 360 PlayStation 2 PlayStation 3 Shield Portable
First release	Half-Life November 19, 1998
Latest release	Half-Life: Alyx March 23, 2020

Half-Life is a series of first-person shooter games created by Valve. The games combine shooting combat, puzzles and storytelling, and are played entirely from the first-person perspective.

The original Half-Life, Valve's first product, was released in 1998 for Windows. Players control silent protagonist Gordon Freeman, a scientist working at the Black Mesa Research Facility who must survive an alien invasion caused by the facility. The use of innovative scripted sequences instead of cutscenes were influential on the first-person shooter genre, and the game inspired numerous community-developed mods, leading to the release of the multiplayer games Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat. Half-Life was followed by the expansions Opposing Force (1999), Blue Shift (2001) and Decay (2001), developed by Gearbox Software.

In 2004, Valve released Half-Life 2 which was developed using their new game engine, and features a more dystopian setting, stronger focus on characters, and implementing physics-based gameplay. Set twenty years after the events of Half-Life, players control Freeman in joining a resistance to liberate humanity from an alien force known as the Combine. It was followed by the episodic sequels Episode One (2006) and Episode Two (2007), which focus on the aftermath of the base game's narrative.

Also set in the same universe as Half-Life is the Portal series; the first game was released in 2007 followed by a sequel in 2011. Both games focus on first-person puzzle-platform gameplay using wormholes created by a portal gun.

Over the following decade, numerous Half-Life games were canceled, including Episode Three, a version of Half-Life 3, and games developed by Junction Point Studios and Arkane Studios. In 2020, after years of speculation, Valve released Half-Life: Alyx, which was developed exclusively for virtual reality headsets. It is a prequel set five years before Half-Life 2, where players control Freeman's eventual ally Alyx Vance in her quest to rescue her father from Combine forces and uncover their mysterious "super-weapon".

The Half-Life series is recognized by critics and industry experts for producing some of the most influential first-person shooter games for the genre, both of which have been highlighted for their advancements towards immersive and varied gameplay, level design, storytelling, visuals and sound. Half-Life and Half-Life 2, as well as Portal and Portal 2, have in particular been cited by numerous publications in being considered among the greatest video games ever made.