Valve hasn't responded yet, so we might as well take advantage of it.
In 1998, Valve was still just a tiny company founded by former Microsoft employees eager to design their own games. They left the company with a project in mind: an absolutely revolutionary first-person action game that would become Half-Life and go on to achieve immense success. It was such a success that when a sequel was announced, it immediately became one of the most anticipated games on the market. Development ofHalf-Life 2 began just six months after the release of the first game, but it still took five long years for the project to come to fruition.
The famous City 17 from Half-Life 2, viewable in a web browser © Club386
On November 16, 2004—almost 22 years ago—the game was finally released and, in turn, became a resounding success. Thanks to its world, its characters, and its physics engine, Half-Life 2 is arguably even more of a benchmark than the first game. However, being 22 years old, it’s likely unknown to many of today’s gamers. As Club386 explains, a fan who goes by the name slqnt decided to pay tribute to this landmark video game—and not just in any old way: he made Half-Life 2 playable directly from any web browser without the need to install anything.
A few visual glitches remain © Club386
When you visit the site set up by slqnt— https://hl2.slqnt.dev/ —you’ll simply see some data loading automatically. Then, the game will start exactly as it did in 2004, but right in your browser. That said, not everything is perfect, and to simplify the process, slqnt has, for example, omitted facial animations. Similarly, some textures for the eyes and faces are missing, but otherwise, it’s the full game. That’s actually where slqnt might run into a small problem: there’s such a thing as copyright, and it’s hard to imagine Valve letting its creation remain “unrestricted” like this. For now, the site is still up, so enjoy it while you can!
