The Half-Life Collection is free-to-play on Steam until Half-Life: Alyx releases

Get caught up on the events in the Half-Life universe.

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What you need to know

Half-Life: Alyx is on the way and ahead of its scheduled release, Valve has just announced that the entire Half-Life Collection is free-to-play on Steam until Half-Life: Alyx releases. The Half-Life Collection includes Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two.

In order to play these games for free, you simply need to haveSteam installed. Since they are all much older titles, it’s unlikely your computer won’t have the needed requirements to run them.

The Half-Life games cover the travails of Gordon Freeman during the Black Mesa event and much later on, the Combine occupation of Earth. If you aren’t familiar with the story but are interested in playing Half-Life: Alyx, this is a great way to get caught up on what has happened. Half-Life: Alyx is set after the first Half-Life but before Half-Life 2.

Half-Life: Alyx is currently set to be available in March 2020. For more on that upcoming VR title, you cancheck out the trailer here.

Save humanity.

The Half-Life collection covers the different struggles of Gordon Freeman as he survives the Black Mesa incident then helps fight in a revolution against the horrific Combine.

Stock up your library.

This large sum of cash is the perfect way to allow yourself to indulge and grab some games from Steam— or help someone else to.

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Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter@SamuelTolbert.