Half-Life series is free-to-play until Alyx’s launch in March

Update: The Half-Life series collection is now official and playable for free, as Valve revealed on Steam forums. “Half-Life: Alyx is set before the events of Half-Life 2 and the episodes, but the games share characters and story elements,” says the studio. “The Half-Life: Alyx team believes that the best way to enjoy the new game is to play through the old ones, especially Half-Life 2 and the episodes, so we want to make that as easy as possible.”

The collection will be playable until Alyx’s launch day in March and features:

Half-Life
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2: Episode One
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Half-Life: Opposing Force
Half-Life: Blue Shift
Team Fortress Classic

Original Story: The anticipation for Valve’s next entry in the Half-Life series has received another boost with a notification that was sent out to some Steam users, advertising an event for the release of Half-Life: Alyx.

The notification, before it promptly disappeared, advertised that players would be able to play the Half-Life Collection for free until the launch of the new VR game. It’s an excellent way for new and old players to catch up on the story of the series, except for one big caveat: there isn’t anything named the Half-Life Collection. 

There isn’t anything on Steam, at the moment, called the Half-Life Collection. The bundles available now are The Orange Box and the Half-Life Complete bundles, but neither of them is free. Searching for each game individually also shows them to have a price point to buy. The notification link will now take you to an error page, and other than its short-lived visibility, there has been no official announcement from Valve itself. 

It could be that the notification was sent out too early, but that still doesn’t tell us precisely what the Half-Life Collection is. Either it is just a mistake, and it refers to the bundles we already have, or there could be a brand new bundle coming out soon to help players get ready for the release of Valve’s next big game in March. 

We will be sure to update the story as more information is known.