Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary
4,065,948
Published 2023-11-17
Check out the Half-Life 25th Anniversary Update, restored content, new multiplayer maps, and a bunch of quality of life updates for the original game at half-life.com/halflife25
0:00 - Intro
1:33 - Early Days of Valve
8:29 - Technology & Scripted Sequences
17:06 - Character Design
30:14 - Creating the Opening Levels
37:09 - Weapon Design
39:46 - Sound Design
44:08 - Level Design
51:05 - Narrative & Voice Acting
57:48 - Xen
01:01:12 - Post Release
Produced for Valve by Secret Tape (secrettape.video/)
- Directed & Edited by: Danny O’Dwyer
- Filmed by: Joey Fameli, Danny O’Dwyer, Michael Lewington, Jeremy Jayne
- Colored by: Jeremy Jayne
- Gameplay Director: Frank Howley
- Motion Graphics - Dan Silverstone / Pica (pica.me.uk/)
- Production Support: Jesse Guarascia
- Captions by Megan Carnes
All Comments (21)
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Dropping a 1 hour long documentary without any announcements or anything for it is the most Valve thing i've ever seen
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Thank you Valve for one of the defining games of my life. This documentary was wonderful.
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50:36 Harry hiding his daughter's portrait in some random destroyed office and John later securing it in the protagonist's personal locker was very lovely. Rather than serving some dark dramatic connotation, she's protected by the main hero Harry could identify with. Quite touching and thoughtful gesture.
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Long long ago, I remember someone drawing a distinction between "realistic" and "authentic". Usually you don't want literal realism. What you want is for the game to feel cohesive and internally consistent. Portals aren't realistic. If we actually had portals like Aperture Science, it would mean free energy. BUT the portals in Portal have an internal logic that's almost entirely consistent across two games. It FEELS real, even though it isn't realistic. That's authenticity.
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Valve actually acknowledging their past is crazy to see
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25 years and Valve comes out of nowhere with an HOUR LONG documentary. Nice one
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It’s so surreal seeing the iconic textures as REAL images
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15:40 this has got to be the best speech on game design, ever
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The game was designed to be fun, and it still is
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"Late is for a little while, suck is forever" - Gaben. Man I love this guy, why can't all game studios have this man.
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My absolute favorite thing about G-Man was how he always sounds like another entity attempting to replicate human inflection. It's so creepy and immediately suggests he's not what he seems. His character wouldn't have been even half as interesting without that constant rising and falling tone. So good.
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1:03:22 "Excited by the future" "The past are the stepping stones to what we'll be able to do in the future" Half-Life 3 confirmed bois.
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Kelly Bailey doing all of the sound, music, and helping design levels. What an insanely talented guy, and the music is forever iconic.
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It would be so cool to see a documentary like this on Half-Life 2
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16:28 "If I go up to a wall and shoot it, to me it feels like the wall is ignoring me, I get a narcissistic injury when the wall ignores me" It's such a good way to describe it, but damn it sounds like Gaban is just losing to the wall.
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hope they'll make a 20 years anniversary documentary about Half-Life 2.
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Valve, this new angle you’ve been going for, willingly being more open with your fans does not go unnoticed. Its a very good break from the radio silence of the recent past. Keep it up.
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The sound effects were so iconic you can still recognize them TO THIS DAY! The fact that this was all done by one person is simply incredible. The gun sounds, reloading, creature effects, crowbar…. It’s all just so incredible.
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34:00 I remember playing this in 1998, I had my newly bought creative sound 5.1 system setup for my new pc. I have never experienced something so immersive before, it was unbelievable! Thank you for creating this experience for us!😊
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Half-Life was so immersive back then I thought it was real life story. Thank you Valve for being part of my childhood
